Added tourniquet to my thigh pocket

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Hey finally something I'm knowledgeable about. I'm new to scuba but not new to emergency medical care. I've had the displeasure of having to use a tourniquet on someone in the civilian world. It is cheap insurance against death in the event of major trauma. I have to disagree with the thought that getting someone out of the water is more important. Stopping the bleeding with a proper tourniquet takes seconds, getting them back to the surface and on the boat takes minutes. I would strongly urge anyone that participates in any activity more dangerous than knitting to go get some medical training. Take a stop the bleed class, take CPR, and take basic first aid. You never know when you are going to be the last thing standing between life and death. As for the tourniquet debate, CAT or SOF-T Wide are optimal SWAT-T has its uses. I don't have any experience with longevity in saltwater so I cant speak to that. SWAT-T is going to be useless underwater as you'll never get a good enough grip to stretch it if its wet. That being said if you have kids, the SWAT-T is Ideal in pediatrics as it doesn't have a bulky windlass and allows better surface contact with the extremity even in the smallest of kids. Also its very effective on dogs for those of you that take you're four legged buddy everywhere. Buy from a reputable medical supplier. Do not buy from Amazon!!! Most of the tourniquets you find on Amazon are knockoffs. Thanks to the Airsoft community wanting to look tactical many folks sell cheap tourniquets there that will never actually get tight enough to occlude arterial blood flow. Also someone mentioned the switch in CPR from 15 compressions 2 breaths and 30 compressions 2 breaths to just 30 compressions 2 breaths for everyone. The major reason for the change is maintaining adequate perfusion. It takes 20 compressions just to get a decent pulse pressure. With cycles of 15:2 you're not building up enough pressure to adequately perfuse the critical parts of the brain so CPR becomes almost useless. If you made it this far I'll throw in that I have been an EMT for 9 years and all of this comes from practical experience not a Google medical degree!
 
So back to the original post.

This scenario does not appear to have been covered yet.

What happens if the shark bites your thigh and the pocket with the tourniquet?

Personally if my buddy was bitten by a shark I'd be more concerned in getting the buddy out of the water to shore and / or onto the boat to apply first aid and not be flaffing around UW applying a tourniquet or whatever while a shark is in attack mode.

:popcorn:
 
I used bring a tourniquet with me while diving for when I get arterial blood loss 40ft underwater from a shark attack, but I recently switched to finding the CG rescue swimmer or PJ with a stocked trauma kit and buddying up with them so they can deal with it.
 
So why has how to correctly apply a pressure bandage to an arterial bleeding been taught on every first aid class I've taken, plus during every Home Guard medic exercise I've participated in?

Unfortunately a lot of people teaching First Aid courses do not have the real experience of trying to solve arterial bleeding problems on the extremities. However, just doing something to address the bleed is better than watching blood go on to the ground. I have used arterial pressure points in the brachial and femoral points in ADDITION to direct pressure and have had success SLOWING THE BLEED. But, the first responder solution to a high pressure arterial bleed is complete occlusion of the artery. This is where a tourniquet applied near the brachial or femoral pressure point WILL occlude the artery. But this is the first step. The next step for the first responder is to get the casualty to direct medical care ie: a vascular surgeon.

The correct indication for a pressure bandage is for venous or capillary bleeding in conjunction with elevation.

I applaud the fact that you are expanding your medical knowledge, make sure your instructor is credible. Just like dive instructors, sometimes folks just buy a certification and present themselves as experts without real world experience.
 
One last thing about pressure bandages, if you remember from class you are supposed to check for a distal pulse on an extremity once the pressure dressing is applied. This is because you are encouraging venous blood return which helps the clotting platelets form to occlude the puncture in the vessel. If the there is no distal pulse then you have inadvertently created a tourniquet which is unnecessary. Do no harm.

This is counterintuitive to the complete occlusion required for the arterial bleed. Just trying to explain the difference between the two types of bleeding. An arterial bleed will put enough blood on the deck in 30 seconds to cause loss of consciousness. In 3-6 minutes hypovolemic shock and death.

But how can you tell the difference? Arterial bleeds look like a garden hose on full blast.
 
Agreed. In any self aid scenario we get ourselves away from the thing that caused the injury. I never said at any point that I would put a TK on underwater. Having one on your person allows you or your buddy to immediately access it once you are safe. At the surface or on the boat deck.

So yes in your scenario deal with the shark surface get on the boat deck, get your tourniquet on you thigh very high at the femoral artery pressure point and crank it until the bleeding stops.

This takes practice but not much. I’m afraid by the time someone digs around for a tourniquet in the aid kit or fashions an expedient one, you may be in serious hypovolemic shock.

But do whatever you want, you all are grown ups. Apparently you all have it figured out. I’m just trying to explain what has worked for me and just trying to spread some positive knowledge. There is no perfect answer here just mitigating risk. I’m sure I can think of some ridiculous scenarios too, but then that’s just me living in a glass house throwing rocks.
 
I applaud the fact that you are expanding your medical knowledge, make sure your instructor is credible.
I have no reason to believe that our military medic instructors had just bought a certification. I very much doubt that they'd be wearing our armed forces' uniform and insignia if that were the case.

So I'd risk the assumption that they were credible.

And you'd probably have a more positive audience if you turned the condescension a couple of notches down from eleven
 
If I may add my .02. I am a career paramedic and have worked with many types of bleeds. Remember that in all scenarios the first step is to ensure or create a safe scene, wich in diving with sharks would most likely mean removal from areas accessible to the sharks (ie get on boat/shore). Arterial bleeds can cause irreversible shock very quickly but can be slowed with direct pressure by a hand to the wound... this could buy you time to get onto a boat. Also as mentioned in earlier replies, tourniquets are for arterial bleeds (bright red, pulsing and gushing blood) and will cause more harm than good in the case of isolated venous bleeds.
My recommendation (but do what you feel best) would be to keep a tourniquet with a med kit that stays on the boat or such instead of with you on the dive.
tourniquets really do make a huge difference when the bleed is too great to stop with direct pressure but should only be used if its arterial and direct pressure isn't working.

also get the training that goes with using them! it's easy to create more damage when performing any medical intervention without the proper understanding of what you're doing!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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