{"id":9772,"date":"2015-05-24T14:40:21","date_gmt":"2015-05-24T18:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=9772"},"modified":"2015-05-24T14:40:21","modified_gmt":"2015-05-24T18:40:21","slug":"tourniquets-for-police-patrol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=9772","title":{"rendered":"Tourniquets for Police Patrol"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tourniquets<\/a>

Author’s SOF-TT, SWAT-T, and C-A-T tourniquets.<\/p><\/div>\n

There was an officer-involved shooting in the City of St. Petersburg last week.\u00a0 In the exchange of gunfire, an officer was hit in the leg by a bullet from the suspect’s pistol.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the officer’s Combat Application Tourniquet (C-A-T\u00ae)<\/a> was in his cruiser.\u00a0 He attempted to fashion a field-expedient tourniquet from a garden hose to help staunch the flow of blood.\u00a0 I am glad to report that he survived.\u00a0 The suspect did not.<\/p>\n

This shooting caused SPPD to examine their issuance of the C-A-T tourniquet.\u00a0 Some officers complained that the C-A-T is difficult to carry on a crowded gun belt.\u00a0 SPPD Chief Tony Holloway, in turn, approved the purchase of the SWAT-Tourniquet<\/a>, or SWAT-T, which is essentially a flat elastic band that folds into a very small package.\u00a0 In St. Pete’s case, the SWAT-T’s will supplement the C-A-T’s that the officers are issued.<\/p>\n

Currently, I have a C-A-T, a SWAT-T, and a third type, the SOF\u00ae Tactical Tourniquet<\/a>.\u00a0 The SOF@TT is a windlass style of tourniquet, which is manually tightened with a rod, as is the C-A-T.\u00a0 My C-A-T was department issued.\u00a0 I bought both my SWAT-T and SOF\u00aeTT.\u00a0 I have practiced with each one and I have a few thoughts.<\/p>\n

My C-A-T is the one I carry on Patrol and, despite that fact that is issued, I would still wear it out of personal preference over the other two.\u00a0 My experience is that the C-A-T is the easiest of the trio to apply to oneself.\u00a0 Each tourniquet will absolutely do the job, but when you have only a minute or two to save yourself from exsanguination, the simplest one to get on is the best.<\/p>\n

I always plan for the worst-case scenario.\u00a0 If I had to apply a tourniquet with just one hand, I find the C-A-T can be pre-loaded to slide on an extremity and be tightened with either arm reliably.\u00a0 The SOF\u00aeTT is similar to the C-A-T, but a bit more complicated with its clamping hardware.\u00a0 The SWAT-T is, frankly, hard to get started on an arm or leg with its first wraps.<\/p>\n

These are my opinions, so if you disagree and like one of the others then I think you should use what works for you.\u00a0 In our yearly TCCC training, our instructor stressed to practice, practice, practice with your tourniquet to make sure you can effectively don it during stress.\u00a0 He also urged us to take everything out of their sealed packages to know how they worked before they are needed.<\/p>\n

As I have written before, when in the blue suit, I carry my C-A-T on my left ankle over my boot with a T.U.C.Rig hook and loop strap<\/a>.\u00a0 The tourniquet is accessible with either hand and comfortable to wear.\u00a0 One our detectives carries hers in this manner in our business casual wear in CID.\u00a0 I see some of our patrol officers with C-A-T belt holsters.\u00a0 Still others affix them in the straps of their ballistic vests.<\/p>\n

I am thrilled law enforcement is having this discussion about tourniquets.\u00a0 Decades ago, an officer friend of mine was shot in the femoral artery and bled to death at the scene.\u00a0 He might have been able to self-rescue and mitigate his extremity hemorrhage if he had a tourniquet.\u00a0 I won’t put on the uniform without strapping mine on.\u00a0 It could save me, another officer, or a citizen.\u00a0 It is that important.<\/p>\n

Randall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was an officer-involved shooting in the City of St. Petersburg last week.\u00a0 In the exchange of gunfire, an officer was hit in the leg by a bullet from the suspect’s pistol.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the officer’s Combat Application Tourniquet (C-A-T\u00ae) was in his cruiser.\u00a0 He attempted to fashion a field-expedient tourniquet from a garden hose to help staunch the flow of blood.\u00a0 I am glad to report that he survived.\u00a0 The suspect did not. This shooting caused SPPD to examine their issuance of the C-A-T tourniquet.\u00a0 Some officers complained that the C-A-T is difficult to carry on a crowded gun belt.\u00a0 SPPD Chief Tony Holloway, in turn, approved the purchase of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[795,72,4,10],"tags":[828,817],"class_list":["post-9772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medical","category-officer-down","category-officer-safety","category-street","tag-officer-safety","tag-tourniquet-for-police"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28xkp-2xC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9772"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9786,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9772\/revisions\/9786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}