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US Army to issue new Tourniquets

Armymedic

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Gotta love an army that learns from its mistakes. The best tourniquet now in theater is a SOF made one that works off the "spanish windlass" techinque. Its only drawback, it uses a metal buclke that needs to be looped and tightened before the tourniquet can be applied. It is cats meow, but feeding the free end thru the buckle can be a bit of a pain with gloves on...and it cost about $35-50 US.

This new tourniquet wraps completely around the arm, getting 100% circumfrance grip with the velcro, then you tighten it down with the spanish windlass handle. One turn of the handle tightens the 1 inch strap tight enough to stop artierial bleeds applying more then 150 mm Hg pressure. It looks good. Hope to get my hands on a couple before I leave theater.


http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/03/27/build/nation/60-new-tourniquets.inc

Army working to get new tourniquets out to soldiers
Associated Press

FORT KNOX, Ky. - The Army is rushing to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan a new and easy-to-use plastic tourniquet that could save more lives on the battlefield.

The nylon and plastic device, which uses a one-inch Velcro strip, was demonstrated Wednesday by Fort Knox soldiers. It is considered much faster and easier to use than more traditional equipment.

The Army has ordered 172,000 of the new tourniquets and will begin distributing them next month.

Currently, soldiers improvise tourniquets using gauze bandages and whatever stick or similarly shaped piece of equipment they can find on the desert battlefield to twist the bandages tight and stop the bleeding.

The new tourniquet is a circular band that is slipped onto a limb and cinched like a seat belt, with a pencil-size plastic bar already attached to tighten the device around the gushing wound. It can be applied with just one hand, officials said.

"This is going to save the lives of some soldiers that we had been losing on the battlefield," said Col. Greg Jolissaint, surgeon general for the Army's Training and Doctrine Command. "You've got about two minutes to save the life of a soldier once you've blown up an artery and that artery is just squirting blood on the battlefield."

Jolissaint, a physician, said the Army realized the need for a better tourniquet in Iraq and Afghanistan because of the large number of limb wounds caused by mines and other explosives improvised by insurgents.

The new Velcro bands will cost about $20 each.

Maj. Gen. George Weightman, commanding general of the U.S. Army Medical Department and School in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, said in the past, tourniquets were seen as a last resort; cutting off the blood flow for too long can force doctors to amputate the limb.

But combat medics have learned that the band can be left on for three or four hours and the limb may still be saved, Weightman said.

The Army said regular soldiers also are getting increased training and other medical equipment that used to go only to battlefield medics.

"We're putting soldiers with increased trauma skills a lot closer to the point of injury," Weightman said.

On Wednesday, a group of infantrymen who began basic training last week spent the morning in a class at Fort Knox training to use the new tourniquet. In a matter of hours, Pvt. Avery Carter of Richmond, Va., said he felt comfortable using it.

 
Combat Application Tourniquet  NSN: 6530-01-521-7976
http://www.cs.amedd.army.mil/ddl/streaming/ehc2.htm


You can buy them from various medical suppliers.

http://www.narescue.com/Bandages/CAT.htm
http://www.vikingtactics.com/ForSale/CAT/CAT.htm
http://www.chinookmed.com/detail.php?product_id=000790&limit_start=0
 
The Army is providing 170,000 Combat Application Tourniquets to soldiers for CENTCOM. The move marks a major shift in the Army's approach to controlling bleeding on the battlefield. Up to now, soldiers have been taught to use a pressure dressing first because a tourniquet can damage the limb and lead to amputation.

http://www.narescue.com/Bandages/CAT.htm

www.armytimes.com

May 02, 2005

New first aid training focuses on choking, bleeding dangers

By David Wood
Newhouse News Service


Pinned down under enemy fire with an injured buddy â ” his leg blown off, his face a mass of blood â ” a soldier should first squeeze in behind the wounded man, allowing his body to absorb the incoming bullets, then yank a tourniquet onto the bleeding stump. When there is a lull in the firing, he should drag his buddy to cover, jam a rubber tube down his nose and turn him on his side so he won't choke.

That's the new first-aid curriculum being taught to all the Army's basic recruits, a sobering but realistic new requirement the Army thinks could save about 10 percent of soldiers who die in battle.

Body armor now worn by all deployed U.S. troops helps protect soldiers' torsos from the gunshot wounds that were the primary causes of death in past conflicts, Army medical officers said. But the most common causes of death among the nearly 1,200 combat fatalities in Iraq have been blood loss from arms or legs that have been smashed or explosively amputated, and bleeding or choking from serious facial wounds.

The new training, and a new first-aid kit the Army will distribute, are the first improvements in basic Army combat medicine since the Korean War.

Soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq often operate beyond the immediate reach of combat medics. In a design that dates to the Cold War, when large units were trained to fight in formation, one Army medic is commonly assigned per infantry platoon of 40 to 60 men. But platoons often split into squads, which operate independently on patrol or in guarding convoys.

â Å“The nearest combat medic may be 30 minutes away, but if you have a partial amputation you have about 10 minutes to stop the bleeding,â ? said Col. Greg Jolissaint, the Army's top medical trainer. â Å“You can't wait for the medic to show up.â ?

And yet, he added, â Å“The No. 1 reason we are losing soldiers on the battlefield is they are bleeding to death.â ?

Until the new training began this month, Army recruits were taught a laborious step-by-step process to determine the extent of a soldier's wounds. Now, trainees are instructed to focus only on bleeding and choking problems first. The newly designed tourniquet comes with a metal rod to torque it tight.

The new first-aid kit also holds a rubber tube, which â Å“you insert in what's left of his nose that opens the airway to the back of the throat, allowing him to breathe on his own,â ? Jolissaint said in an interview.

Most important, he said, â Å“We are teaching them to do all this while they are taking fire on the battlefield: Your foot patrol is under attack, your buddy has gone down, you are taking rounds, what do you do? The first thing is not to become a casualty yourself.â ?

Each of the Army's 80,000 recruits will get the training this year, practicing on realistic mannequins and on fellow soldiers writhing in agony from faked wounds.

With simple actions to control bleeding and clear the breathing passage of wounded soldiers, â Å“we can probably save 10 percent of the people who've been dying on the battlefield in Afghanistan and Iraq,â ? Jolissaint said.

In a separate effort, the Army has trained tens of thousands of soldiers in basic trauma medicine.

â Å“I've got 60 combat life savers trained out of 83 soldiers in the company,â ? said Capt. Brian Thornton, who commands an engineer company of the Rhode Island National Guard.

But not every combat lifesaver gets the well-stocked medical kit, Thornton said. Each nine-man squad gets only one.
 
Merged the two threads, both about the Combat Application Tourniquets.

Cheers All.
 
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