My understanding is that the anti-tourniquet meme is outdated, and the emergency medical response advice now is that the benefits of potentially preventing someone’s death from blood loss outweigh the risk of amputation. I recall being taught in my college course in 2015 that it’s fine to put on a tourniquet, just mark it with the time. And a few years ago, when my mom pulled a heavily bleeding man out of the cab of his overturned truck and wouldn’t let any of the other truckers apply a tourniquet to his arm because she’d been taught that you should never apply a tourniquet, the nurse who showed up at the scene later (and applied a tourniquet) told her it would have been fine to do so. (Yes my mom is a way better person to go to in an emergency than I am, guess it’s not hereditary.)
And I mean yeah, most people aren’t going to successfully tourniquet anything even if they try so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I still think it might be anti-helpful to propagate the ‘don’t apply tourniquets’ meme.
Thanks. This is helpful context. The class I took was only a year ago, so I don’t feel like that obviously fits the “this information is just outdated” narrative, but I am genuinely unsure whether it was good advice at this point. On the margin my statement may have been too strong, and I don’t want to suggest that never using a tourniquet is correct, but I do think it’s probably correct for people to know the risks and alternatives before applying one.
My understanding is that the anti-tourniquet meme is outdated, and the emergency medical response advice now is that the benefits of potentially preventing someone’s death from blood loss outweigh the risk of amputation. I recall being taught in my college course in 2015 that it’s fine to put on a tourniquet, just mark it with the time. And a few years ago, when my mom pulled a heavily bleeding man out of the cab of his overturned truck and wouldn’t let any of the other truckers apply a tourniquet to his arm because she’d been taught that you should never apply a tourniquet, the nurse who showed up at the scene later (and applied a tourniquet) told her it would have been fine to do so. (Yes my mom is a way better person to go to in an emergency than I am, guess it’s not hereditary.)
And I mean yeah, most people aren’t going to successfully tourniquet anything even if they try so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I still think it might be anti-helpful to propagate the ‘don’t apply tourniquets’ meme.
Thanks. This is helpful context. The class I took was only a year ago, so I don’t feel like that obviously fits the “this information is just outdated” narrative, but I am genuinely unsure whether it was good advice at this point. On the margin my statement may have been too strong, and I don’t want to suggest that never using a tourniquet is correct, but I do think it’s probably correct for people to know the risks and alternatives before applying one.