Basheroffroad
Registered
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!