https://www.spokesman.com/stories/20...email=50289671
‘What you did saved his life’: Spokane trash collectors aid motorcyclist who lost leg in crash
Good mindset lesson. Doing something beats doing nothing, even with sub-optimal tools.
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https://www.spokesman.com/stories/20...email=50289671
‘What you did saved his life’: Spokane trash collectors aid motorcyclist who lost leg in crash
Good mindset lesson. Doing something beats doing nothing, even with sub-optimal tools.
FWIW, the current recommendations are to not attempt improvised tourniquets unless the person doing so is a skilled practitioner.
Improvised tourniquets have pretty horrendous success rates among people with no-to-minimal training (say, a 2 day TCCC course), and applying direct pressure in the lack of commercial TQs is currently the recommended best practice. While applying direct pressure will likely not stop the bleeding, the decreased blood loss will give you a better fighting chance than a poorly applied improvised tourniquet (of which, most improvised TQs are poorly executed interventions).
I'd be willing to bet money that the belt applied as a "tourniquet" in this case did absolutely nothing, as belts wrapped around a leg are not a tourniquet regardless of that myth being perpetrated in movies, and the doc was likely playing along and being a good sport so as to encourage good behavior among bystanders.
Probably a good place for a reminder that "Stop the Bleed" classes are available for free at many locations nationwide:
https://cms.bleedingcontrol.org/Class/Search
I'm not teaching it anymore in B-Con level classes. I've found its a bridge too far for most students at that level in my 4 hour class format. If students wanted it, I'd want an extra two hours tacked onto the class....those extra 2 hours being dedicated entirely to skills work in teams of no more than 3 students per station using various objects.
I dunno. I'll defer to the experts on this one. I will say that A: this dude is still alive, despite being suddenly sans lower leg, and B: I always have a commercial TQ on me. One in today's jacket pocket, and another in my daily messenger bag, for example. My belt stays on my pants. But hell, whatever works.
I know zero about tourniquets. I saw that Red Cross advises the untrained to apply tourniquets and gives a diagram to follow. So who has this specialized knowledge requiring advanced training? Army medics? Nurses? Firemen? EMT people?
I get that modern tourniquets are by far the preferred and recommended treatment for controlling major bleeding to the extremities, so I can see why modern “systems” don’t teach to rely on improvised tourniquets.
But, on the gripping hand, humans have also been effectively using improvised tourniquets since way before Jesus was a little bitty baby.
@TGS is specifically referring to the application of an improvised tourniquet as an advanced skill, not the application of a commercially manufactured tourniquet. It’s a lot easier to teach someone to apply a CAT to the patient than it is to teach them how to combine a cravat, a pistol magazine, and a belt keeper into a tourniquet.
ETA: I just checked the Red Cross website. It looks like they’ve partnered with Tac Med Solutions to offer a red-in-color SOFTTW tourniquet as the official tourniquet of the Red Cross. As someone who has been trained with both, I find it’s definitely a lot easier to apply a SOFTTW than it is to assemble an improvised tourniquet. One of the things I’ve seen a lot of people forget when messing around with improvised tourniquets is some way to secure the windlass after the tourniquet is tightened. Depending on what you used you might find that you should have installed the securing strap before you tightened your improvised windlass, because you can’t install it after it’s been tightened. Now you’re stuck securing the windlass with your hand, hoping someone shows up before you pass out from blood loss.
The "effective" part is the piece that isn't really true. There's plenty of literature on it.
Improvised tourniquets are something that can be made to work, but most people who've taken a first aid class or even an EMT class are usually unable to make them work out in the field using what they have on hand.
Direct pressure can be applied without delay, and while it likely won't stop bleeding it will definitely slow it much more than a shitty improvised tourniquet.
All getting back to the point that a belt wrapped around a leg isn't a tourniquet, and the entire point of why I posted is to point out that "Do something with what you got" is a great mentality, but do something that actually works...and the medical community feels that for the average bear, applying direct pressure is likely to lead to a better end state than people finger-fucking some bullshit improvised tourniquet that doesn't do anything useful when you could've been actually slowing blood loss in the 3-5 minutes of lost time.
Did the guys at fletc show you using an extended baton as the windlass and running it through your belt loop to secure it? I always thought that was pretty trick.