BLOOD CLOTTER FLOPPED IN IRAQ, SOLD AT HOME

I was doing some googling for new products to include into my FAK, and ran into this article about QuickClot. The article was not very favorable towards the product. Has anyone here ever used the stuff or something like it?

P.S. Article is not for the faint-hearted.

Personally, I include Blood Stop Gauze and at least one First Care Emergency Bandages in my FAKs. My general thinking is to apply the gauze, then the bandage over it.

There was a thread about the Blood Stop Gauze a while back.

There are also some threads about QuickClot on here.

-john

The reports are dated. The US ARMY currently issues the Quick Clot SPOUNGE with the Israeli bandage. They had reports of the Quick Clot powder blowing away in the wind and having a hard time getting it into and or onto the wound. Now they train to put the spounge over the wound and then the bandage.

I personaly like the 6" /w sliding pad bandage (Israeli Bandage) as the best overall bandage with some quick quick clot. I will be upgrading from the powder quick clot to the spounge.

The local ambulance service carries the Israeli bandage 6" with sliding pad. One paramedic told me he used one on an guy with an amuptated arm and it stopped the bleeding 100%. He reminded me direct pressure works "BEST".

I had purchased the Cinch Tight bandage and the Israeli bandage in the past. The Cinch Tight "hook" thing promply came off the bandage in the first minute of handling one. I still have several Cinch Tight's, BUT I will only buy and reley on the Israeli bandage in the future. Thye are the best in my opinion.

I get my stuff from www.chinookmed.com

A big +1 for Chinook Medical. I bought some stuff from them, and they had it to me in no time. I was very happy with my purchase.

Patrick

As my own first-hand experience proved, the stuff works well when you apply it correctly. Basically, put it on a 4x4, then put it on the wound.

I would be careful about calling (that website calling) QuickClot a "flop" based on these handful of incidents in this one report (from 2003). Reports from actual users are valuable, but user comments can also lead to erroneous conclusions, too. For example, QuickClot does mention in its literature that puncture wounds, like a small gunshot entrance wound, can be problematic because it is hard to get the product down to the actual site of heavy bleeding. That's a problem to the person bleeding out, yes, but not necessarily a failure of the product, particularly when that limitation was known before the product was distributed to the troops. More open wounds, like a cut or laceration, or wounds with less blood flow are where products like QuickClot generally do better. Short of sticking a hemostat into your thigh to clamp off the femoral artery, I don't think that there are any products out there that do well in such a situation.

I've read it. I wouldn't call QuikClot a flop. I'm more interested in the shrimp stuff (a little friendlier around wet and cold), but QuikClot has worked. Maybe not as was hoped, maybe not as pitched by some of the PR flacks, but it has worked. It IS NOT the great magic wand to bleeding that a lot people thought it was going to be, but realistically the only thing that will do that is pull our brains out and put them in armoured fishbowls inside a souped up Talon.

I'm glad the sponges are being fielded, they look like they are harder to screw up and I do like the idea of a blood stopper in a fiber bandage. And more effective in cases where you have high pressure bleeding such as the four described- bracial and femoral arteries? That's like trying to plug up the end of a fire hose with dry cement.