Use tools to carry casualties
Moving casualties is always hard.
Use a tool whenever possible. Even a folding chair makes it easier to carry casualties quickly and over distance.
Humans are hard to carry. They do not fit into our hands well like a barbell or a hammer would – their limbs are floppy and they tend to bend in the middle at the pelvis, endangering the backs of rescuers and slowing the process down to unacceptable levels. By using tools in our environment, we can learn to carry casualties quickly and effectively.
In this video, students in an in-person class demonstrate using cheap, foldable chairs as litters to carry casualties. Once the casualty is seated in the chair, rescuers can bend down, using their legs, and lip the casualty holding the chair legs, which fit our hands remarkably well.
This video was taken at an in-person Crisis Medicine Complete Tactial Casualty Care course. Can’t attend an in-person course? Consider training on-line with us.