As many of you know our son is a U.S. Marshal. He is also the team medic and gets loaned out to other teams as well as to local SWAT teams when needed. Over the years he has really gotten geared to that role. He also assists a local trauma doctor in putting on training classes. Last week he had to preform his 1st leg amputation at the scene of a motor vehicle accident. He was just over helping me with some yard work and we started talking about the amputation. I was asking about Quikclot. He told me they only use the Quikclot bandages now. He went out to his truck and brought in one of his trauma kits and showed me the sealed bandages. Now for the trick-I noticed all of his bandage packs had a strip of duct tape at the top of the package and another placed an inch or so below it. When I asked why he said, "When you need them chances are your hands are bloody. Bloody hands can't grip the package tight enough to rip the plastic open. The duct tape gives you the needed grip to tear the package open." I've never considered that before, and thought I should pass it along. Maybe y'all already know this but I never gave it a thought. Will be taking some time and going through our aid kits with a roll of duct tape..
I will never forget my first one, what a mess! Had to do the sawzall under a dashboard/steering column in a Hummer! Imaging laying on your side and only able to work one handed, yup, those tape "rip-strips" really come in handy! Also tied 250 LB Paracord to forceps and other small tools, partly so as not to loose them, partly to keep from leaving them inside some one, which some times you have to, like forceps! Having a tag end that the doctors can see easily sure saves a lot of trouble later! Doing amputations sucks, not something I ever want to have to do again! We didn't have quick clot back then, something kinda like it, but not as good as it is now, we haven't really trained with the newer stuff, not a lot of opertunities to do it so the best we can count on is our experience! We had a really bad car crash involving a semi truck back in 2009, had my Wife ( who was a trauma surgeon then) assist in doing a leg amputation above the knee, she had never had to do one before, especially in the wilds, she said it was a real eye opener, especially as I had to do it with a hand bone saw! Showing her how to close and prep was also a wake up, now she teaches me all that stuff! Lol
Reminds me, lots of little tricks I almost forgot! We would use colored electrical tape on our various hand tools, forceps, clamps, ratchets and such, usually to make it easy to tell size at a glance, especially helpful when working with noobs or other forces not accustomed to your organization methods! Another one is a sort of belt clip baggy for catching re usables and another one for waste, really handy to have, especially for hard to come by items. The oft mentioned Sharpy for making notes is another one. I used to keep a pair of scalpels taped together with the blades going both directions all you had to do was slip off the cover/guard and your back in action instead of rooting around in your kit for a freshy! We also did a lot of pre-prep of most used items, such a breathing apparatus, pre cut lengths of hose rigged to your trech piece, per cut lengths for running I.V's especially darts, and all that, basically, any thing you know your going to use more then once you kept pre rigged and ready in sterile packaging, you can vacuum bag all your rigging and keep it sterile indefinitely this way, and having it pre rigged sure saves time when seconds count!
For those of you who haven't been to Wally World (or refuse to shop Amazon), they carry "Bleed stop" which is something you should have in every first aid kit and trauma kit along with a one handed tourniquet. The Bleed stop is good for a couple of applications and should be good for 4 yrs or so before it needs to be replaced. I have them in all my cars, at home and the cabin. Very handy for pets as well. If you can't afford the $12 for the tourniquet, hit the dollar twenty five store and buy a small roll of paracord. You can pre-make those into make do tourniquets.
