IMO the best use of tubing in a PSK is to extract water from tight spots that are hard to access: shallow depressions, rock crevices, etc. I know ETS is no fan of the solar still but in the right conditions and with the right methods they can be surprisingly effective, and its nice to access their water via tubing instead of disturbing the still.



Have you researched this? Be careful that your tourniquet fully stops arterial flow. If it stops venous flow and not all arterial flow, you will bleed out faster than if you had not applied the tourniquet.

For improvised tourniquets you are better off with a stick and a rag.

I'm no expert, but when I took my Wilderness First Aid course a few years back the instructor basically said don't use tourniquets period.

My understanding is this is the direction civilian emergency medicine has gone, with the military only still actively recommending / training / using the technique.

Like many things in life, emergency medical techniques/procedures seem to have their own cycles of in-vogue/out-of-vogue. Currently, many EMT programs are reintroducing the early application of tourniquets for bleeding control. If direct pressure, elevation and pressure points do not control bleeding very quickly, the advice is to apply a tourniquet early in the process. The usual caveats and rules of tourniquet application still apply.

Pete

First and foremost, I am not a medical professional.

In December I took a trauma class for firearms instructors. My original post on it is http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=211892&page=all (you'll have to scroll down a bit).

We were trained extensively on tourniquets. Loss of blood is the most common killer of people who could otherwise be saved, and tourniquets are extremely effective in stopping bleeding from extremities.

I am not a medical professional either.

Our cub scouts had a first aid class and the instructor talked about using a tourniquet and including it in a first aid kit. I must admit it concerned me a bit that he seemed to be advocating their usage. On the other hand, maybe he thought since he was teaching a group of scouts (I am sure in his mind he assumed cub scouts = boy scouts) that some last resort, life saving wilderness first aid techniques were in order (or maybe he teaches it in ALL his first aid classes -wishing now I had asked him).

It has always been my understanding that a tourniquet is an absolutely worst case, last resort, the person will die if the tourniquet is not used kind of thing. In that context it would be worth including in a kit and learning about in a first aid course.

The problem has been that we have drilled into people that a tourniquet is a last resort technique so well that people were/are dying from blood loss that could otherwise be saved through the use of a tourniquet. The CATs and other medical devices that have been developed for the military have been shown to save lives. As the civilian medical community examines statistical information based upon field data and other controlled medical studies, treatment protocols change.

Pete

I am a medical professional. The National Registry of EMTs (NREMT) has everyone from Basic EMTs on up using tourniquets for severe extremity hemmorhage if direct pressure doesn't work first (see the skills check sheet here). The prehospital trauma life support (PHTLS) class has been teaching the same thing for a couple of years now. The military teaches every soldier to apply a tourniquet, even with their evac times being more extended than in civilian EMS.

Don't rely on what the Boy Scouts said 20 years ago when it comes to your medical knowledge.

99% of the Boyscouts information is very very outdated. Not to mention most people rely on the cliffnotes the handbook has instead of using the fieldbook which is more suited towards camping and such when the handbook is all about how to act proper.

I need to recertify my Wilderness First Aid (Remote Responder) this year so it will be interesting to see if this has changed.

Then again, since it is a more basic course (similar to Standard First Aid I think), maybe it would be beyond the course's scope in any case?

DISCLAIMER: This post is the result of being in the insurance industry for too many years, overthinking possible scenarios, plus a healthy dose of paranoia, heated and stirred frequently.

Unfortunately, there are far too many lawyers and lawsuits in my area of the country. For the average joe like me, being in a situation where I would have to consider whether or not to use a tourniquet is terrifying, almost unthinkable. I am thinking of a scenario of someone getting a really bad cut on the arm or leg and they need immediate medical attention. As I see it, there are 1 of 4 possible outcomes.

The first and best: the bleeding stops with pressure applied, I get the victim to medical attention in a timely manner, no other complications or consequences.

Second outcome: The bleeding doesn't stop with pressure, I apply a tournaquet, save the victims life, but they lose the limb. In the lawsuit, a medical professional testifies that a tourniquet was not necessary and I am screwed.

Third outcome: I don't apply a tourniquet and the victim bleeds out and dies. In the lawsuit, a medical professional testifies that a tourniquet would have saved the victims life and I am screwed.

Fourth outcome: I do nothing for fear of being sued and the victim bleeds out and dies. I am sued for doing nothing and I am screwed.

Hopefully I am wrong about the last three outcomes. In any event, I like to think that i would have the presence of mind to do what is necessary to save the victim's life without overthinking it too much. In any event, I would certainly hope someone with more training than I have was around (working on that slowly but surely).