Video used with permission by Andrew Dennis, DO FACS, FACOS, Cook County Trauma Burn Unit, Chicago Il Sucking chest wounds are dramatic, but rarely life-threatening. The sound of sucking & blowing is the sound of not dying of tension pneumothorax. There is …
Recently we posted a video outlining the challenges of using hemostatic granules as compared to gauze. In response, we were surprised by how many people advocated for tactical tampons to control massive hemorrhage in a gunshot wound. “Depending on the …
We recently discovered “active shooter kits” being marketed to agencies and schools containing granular hemostatic agents. Granular or powdered hemostatic agents fell out of favor over ten years ago as they “wash out” of actively bleeding wounds, are hard to …
Although an IFAK is technically an Individual First Aid Kit, it should more appropriately be thought of as an Individual Trauma Kit. First Aid kits and First Aid courses, as commonly thought of, deal with topics more akin to bandaids …
The same week we learned about a School District in Florida who bought 800 cheap knock-off tourniquets, we also learned our daughter’s school initially purchased a tourniquet with no evidence to support it works. The school subsequently had to spend …
Cravats as Improvised Tourniquets As a Special Forces medic serving in the late eighties and nineties, an improvised tourniquet was our planned option, should the need for a tourniquet arise. At that time, commercially proven, off the shelf tourniquets did …