Lucky to survive

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Originally Posted by whipski

You're cute! If the strap was effective why would my foot be dead? Life over limb I guess. Anyway more to the point. Guess I'll put this in the pack next to the avi-lung.
http://www.combattourniquet.com/

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CAT is a great choice, easy/reliable to apply, and is light. You're in Salida so I'd say swing by Rescue Essentials, but they moved to bigger digs. Know that if you ebay it, there are knockoffs.

To answer your question, a tourniquet used properly at the right time saves your life by stopping you from bleeding out. A GOOD tourniquet does that without destroying the tissue underneath it.. If you destroy the tissue circumferentially around your leg by crushing the structures and cells with a narrow tourniquet, that means you end up losing everything distal. I defer to old goat as it becomes a surgical problem at that point.

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Originally Posted by adrenalated

The Iraq War happened and we learnt stuff. Good example of why doing the recert is worthwhile :)

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So the moral of the story is that war is good? j/k.

I did a shorter WFA a few years back at least. I'm kind of the opinion that you can deal with minor things like a blister in the field, but pretty quickly it ramps up to needing care in a medical setting- especially if all you do is a class with no practice, it's different if you work in a hospital like Summit etc. But you're just not going to do a field tracheotomy with a leatherman and a straw and assemble a rescue sled and get your buddy to the hospital, you just aren't... So better to have some extra layers and an inreach than anything else, imo.

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Originally Posted by goldenboy

So the moral of the story is that war is good? j/k.

I did a shorter WFA a few years back at least. I'm kind of the opinion that you can deal with minor things like a blister in the field, but pretty quickly it ramps up to needing care in a medical setting- especially if all you do is a class with no practice, it's different if you work in a hospital like Summit etc. But you're just not going to do a field tracheotomy with a leatherman and a straw and assemble a rescue sled and get your buddy to the hospital, you just aren't... So better to have some extra layers and an inreach than anything else, imo.

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I had this conversation with a touring partner the other day. He had his first aid kit which is good. But really it’s good for minor cut, scrapes and blisters etc. A tourniquet is a good idea but so is a splint of some kind, and a rescue sled. What about pain killers, stronger narcotics? The reality is that unless you’re practiced with these treatments regularly it’s not really practical. Get a tourniquet, a real one, if you must it’ll save a life or limb. Having insulation, a means for fire, water and some food, some sort of way to contact EMS/S&R are probably the most practical things you can carry.


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Originally Posted by whipski

You're cute! If the strap was effective why would my foot be dead? Life over limb I guess. Anyway more to the point. Guess I'll put this in the pack next to the avi-lung.
http://www.combattourniquet.com/

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Well your foot would only be dead while the tourniquet was on. Just don't leave it too long.

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Originally Posted by goldenboy

I took my WFR in the late 90's. At the time they had were pretty much going with "tourniquets bad, don't use them". Interesting how that one has turned around. And to bring it back around to the topic of the original post, it seems to have helped this guy and he seems like a cool dude, so I'm glad it did.

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Tourniquets are bad because lack of blood supply and the direct pressure of the tourniquet damages tissue. Tourniquets are good because they can keep people from bleeding to death. Things go back and forth. Iraq, with a lot of extremity wounds from IED's, showed the value of tourniquets, as used for severe injuries and applied by trained medics. My guess is that the use of tourniquets in civilian life, applied by people with little or no training, for wounds that have less than life threatening bleeding, will do more harm than good and the pendulum will swing back again. Given the speed of transport in urban settings, most unnecessary or improperly applied tourniquets will be removed before any harm is done. That might not be the case in rural and especially backcountry situations. Time will tell.

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Originally Posted by goldenboy

So the moral of the story is that war is good? j/k.

I did a shorter WFA a few years back at least. I'm kind of the opinion that you can deal with minor things like a blister in the field, but pretty quickly it ramps up to needing care in a medical setting- especially if all you do is a class with no practice, it's different if you work in a hospital like Summit etc. But you're just not going to do a field tracheotomy with a leatherman and a straw and assemble a rescue sled and get your buddy to the hospital, you just aren't... So better to have some extra layers and an inreach than anything else, imo.

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I've been told in all seriousness, by a famous surgeon, that the medical advances developed in war time have saved more civilian lives in peacetime than have been lost in the wars. This is obviously absurd. You may have been kidding, but he wasn't.

I like your second paragraph too. I would add that even in the hands of well trained surgeons, rarely done procedures to deal with extreme emergencies don't go nearly as well as the books say. Finger control of the innominate artery eroded by a tracheostomy, cricothryoidotomy for gun shot wound to the face, inferior vena cava shunt for gunshot wound to the IVC--I have experience with all of these and they don't usually work as advertised. And I'm used to the sight of blood. To paraphrase Mike Tyson--everyone has a plan until the blood hits them in the face.

Yeah, you're not wrong GB. A big takeaway from my WFR was definitely that a reliable way to get professional help coming ASAP is probably the most valuable thing you can carry in the backcountry. I learned a LOT of skills that could potentially be useful and save a life but realistically it was all stuff to just buy slightly more time. The end result is you still have to evacuate pretty much everything that you'd expect you might need to evacuate, and the sooner the better.

Most of what's in my first aid kit is really just cuts and scrapes and blisters stuff, like others have said.

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Originally Posted by old goat

…Finger control of the innominate artery eroded by a tracheostomy, cricothryoidotomy for gun shot wound to the face, inferior vena cava shunt for gunshot wound to the IVC--I have experience with all of these and they don't usually work as advertised. And I'm used to the sight of blood. To paraphrase Mike Tyson--everyone has a plan until the blood hits them in the face.

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That’s quite the list of Bad Things Happening. Remind me not to go touring with OG. Seems like he runs into trouble.

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Originally Posted by goldenboy

I took my WFR in the late 90's. At the time they had were pretty much going with "tourniquets bad, don't use them". Interesting how that one has turned around. And to bring it back around to the topic of the original post, it seems to have helped this guy and he seems like a cool dude, so I'm glad it did.

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From a WFA book called Wilderness Life Support for a WFA class I'm taking this Friday - says tourniquets are "widely viewed as last resort only"

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Originally Posted by adrenalated

Yeah, you're not wrong GB. A big takeaway from my WFR was definitely that a reliable way to get professional help coming ASAP is probably the most valuable thing you can carry in the backcountry. I learned a LOT of skills that could potentially be useful and save a life but realistically it was all stuff to just buy slightly more time. The end result is you still have to evacuate pretty much everything that you'd expect you might need to evacuate, and the sooner the better.

Most of what's in my first aid kit is really just cuts and scrapes and blisters stuff, like others have said.

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I've babbled about this ad nauseum in other forums but I'm a big fan of a roll of 2 inch athletic tape (and a razor if you're not a sadist)--won't help much for skiing but for hiking it can convert a sprained ankle from an evacuation to a slow walk out. If you know how to tape an ankle. I learned this personally--not in the BC--but I sprained my ankle badly playing basketball, multiple ligaments with little chip fractures. I went to the ortho clinic at the VA I was working at to get a cast put on so I could work and the old school tech taped me up instead. Amazing how well it worked.

Mint rode his bike across town to watch the slalom races last…good to see him out in the world.


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