Originally Posted By: Pete
"A chest seal, such as the HALO. It's what I carry."

I'll look it up. But if you can elaborate that would be handy. I don't have one.


There are two ways I know about to treat tension pneumothorax in the field. One is to use either a purpose-made or a field-expedient chest seal. Some have a valve-like function to allow trapped air to escape, others just keep more air from entering the thorax.

The other way is to use a decompression needle to remove the trapped air. The first way is something people can be trained on quickly and it would take special talent to make someone worse with one. The decompression needle can easily do significant harm if used incorrectly.