TOURNIQUETS, AT LAST, FOR G.I.S

“Under pres­sure from Congress, the Army has decided to quickly dis­patch mod­ern tourni­quets to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the AP reports. “Thats more than two years after mil­i­tary doc­tors rec­om­mended that every sol­dier carry one.”

In an arti­cle March 6, The Baltimore Sun described a lack of tourni­quets among sol­diers in the field and delays in sup­ply­ing them.
Virginia Stephanakis, a spokes­woman for the Army sur­geon gen­eral, had no imme­di­ate details on the num­ber of tourni­quets or a timetable by which they will be sent to U.S. troops…
A com­mit­tee of mil­i­tary doc­tors urged in February 2003 that every sol­dier carry one of the $20 med­ical devices, a nylon and plas­tic ver­sion of the sim­ple cloth-​​and-​​stick device armies have used to stop bleed­ing for cen­turies.
But many dont, and some have bled to death from wounds on which a tourni­quet might have been effec­tive, accord­ing to more than a dozen mil­i­tary doc­tors and med­ical spe­cial­ists inter­viewed by The Sun.
The U.S. Central Command, which over­sees com­bat oper­a­tions in Iraq and Afghanistan, issued a direc­tive Jan. 6 requir­ing all sol­diers to carry a mod­ern tourni­quet.
However, com­pli­ance was left up to indi­vid­ual units, and many have not acquired the devices.
Three weeks ago, the Armys sur­geon gen­eral, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, approved a new first-​​aid kit for sol­diers that includes a mod­ern tourni­quet and other life-​​saving equip­ment.
But the train­ing man­ual was still being writ­ten and the kits were expected to be field tested, a process expected to take months.
Now, Stephanakis said that the tourni­quets would be sent with­out wait­ing for the field test­ing of the new first-​​aid kits.

March 15th, 2005 | Medic! | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.