Emergency Trauma/First Aid

Hey Gang, taking a look at one of my favorite topics to get folks hooked on being more prepared to help their fellow man: Emergency First Aid!

While CPR (with it’s questionable success rates without an AED) has been widely pushed for the last 40 years, only more recently has bleeding control become “in vogue” through Stop The Bleed campaigns and increased education in the world of sheepdogs, responsible (armed) citizens, and modern-day minutemen.

Here at Tuff Possum Gear, we believe every man should know how to make a life, take a life, and save a life. My hope is that we can contribute to the latter, through a series of YouTube video recommendations in this blog post.

NOTE: I will do my best to make these recommendations in order of importance and most value for your time. Start at the top. There might be a slight sense of repetition with a couple them, but I laid out this way on purpose. If you have only 15 minutes to spare, you will gain. If you have an hour, great! 2 hours? Perfect! Be sure to read the video descriptions as well for more information.

First up we have an overview of “Stopping The Bleed”. Length: 13 minutes.

Next up we have a dedicated video on tourniquets. Average human body surface area is around 54% arms and legs. The torso and head get more complicated, but this one is “low hanging fruit” so to speak. Length: 18 minutes.

After tourniquets, I would recomend learning how to “wound pack”. This is for those area of the body like the shoulder and groin that are not in a cavity (guts and lungs), but just too high up to get that tourniquet on. If it’s on a limb and you don’t have a tourniquet, this is going to be your next best thing. Again, we are trying to hit the low hanging fruit. There isn’t much I can do for a guy with a gaping hole in his head, but a wound in the shoulder is something you and I can do a whole lot more to help with. Length: 8 minutes.

Next up, we have a bit of review and more in depth on the wound packing covered above, paired with the next step after controlling the bleeding: keeping the airway open so he can BREATH! Length: 18 minutes.

Wrapping up with a variety of essential topics to round out the MARCH protocol: Respiration, Circulation, and Head Injury/Hypothermia. All solid topics that anyone looking to save a life should know. Length: 25 minutes.

If you have made it this far, AWESOME!!! Keep going for a few more video’s on more specialized topics that we believe are really valuable to know a bit about.

From campfire and kitchen accidents to vehicle and structure fires, burns are certainly something we should be concerned about as well. Length: 20 minutes.

For general first aid purposes, splinting broken or severely sprained bones is also of value. A versitile, inexpensive piece of kit I recommend for this is called the “SAM Splint” and here is a video on it’s application. Length: 13 minutes.

Up until now in this post, we have featured videos primarily from our friend’s over at Six Echo Systems. This next video is by another excellent YouTube channel, PrepMedic. You may remember that our original PSK Pouch design was a collaboration with Sam from PrepMedic and we highly recommend following him as well. Sam has a whole slew of videos covering many of the same topics as the other videos in this blog post, so if you want to really memorize some of these concepts, I recommend checking out his videos to double down on learning these things from a different instructor with different nuances and a different voice to cement it in your noggin.

Here is a recent video from PrepMedic, that I really had to include here to address a couple “myths” (hint: belts and tampons really don’t work!) and a few really useful tips to tuck in your tool box. Length: 12 minutes.

Hey, if you have made it this far and watch ALL of the above videos, I want to take a minute and say THANK YOU!! You just invested a little over 2 hours in learning knowledge that has the potential to make a life or death difference in someone’s life. Now get out there, pick up some supplies and train with them!

A note on buying tourniquets: There are ton’s of fake Chinese knockoff CAT Tourniquets being sold on Amazon, eBay, and at gun shows. These will break, fail you, and let someone die. Do NOT buy them. If a CAT tourniquet costs less than about 30 bucks, don’t trust it. We recommend buying them from either North American Rescue directly or a trusted dealer. You are in luck, because Six Echo Systems is exactly that.

Disclaimer: I have purchased hundreds of dollars of gear from Six Echo Systems and have contracted them to do work for Tuff Possum Gear in the past. That being said, there is no compensation in this for me. He doesn’t even know about this post or shout out yet, haha! I support him because I believe in his mission and his work.

It is my prayer that this blog post and it’s contents serve you well.
Keep your powder dry and your head on a swivel.
See you around the campfire,
Jayberry