How to Care under Fire:
>strong bleeding or amputation?
C.A.T.
>no?
Continue fighting and do normal civie first aid until you reach someone with actual medical experience

>>29889993
TCCC is geared towards "wait for real medics" too. The first thing the course drills into your head is "you are not a doctor". The course is great, but your goal is always to hand off a stablized patent to a professional.

We were taught a lot of keep it simple stupid and did life drills which were made high stress and with curveballs, but were conceptually simple. If you are doing most of your learning from books rather than a live course with supervision, you need to focus even more on the basics. It's not sexy, but the basics are the foundation.

Do occlusive seals anywhere on the torso, high & tight tourniquets for limbs, finger banged gauze + ACE into groin and armpits. Keep it simple. You aren't going to be doing surgery on these people.

Do the basics, do them well. Pack extras of basic shit so when you fumble the first attempt you've got more.

Keep your first aid kit organized and with the basics for immediate life threatening injuries. Pack a second aid kit with all your bullshit pills, creams, and boo boo items to get it out of the way.

>>29889993
um some blunt things i know of, never administered

ABC = airway, breathing, circulation. in circulation, apply RICE = rest, ice, compress, elevate. compressing a wound is generally the most simple and effective method you will have.

for head trauma, the glasgow system can be used to diagnose. treating said diagnosis is beyond my knowledge. it is somewhat intuitive

should take a first aid class, or maybe a lifeguard class

my father always just taught me, 'put pressure on it'.

>>29890062
Thanks! Sounds info, but I have a couple of questions if I may

>Do occlusive seals anywhere on the torso
Does that include the abdomen? If so why?
>high & tight tourniquets for limbs
I've heard two different things for this, originally it was to TQ near the top of the limb, but increasingly it's recommended to apply 2" above the injury. Was the top of limb advice to do with if an artery between two bones such as those in the forearm and shin are hemorrhaging and I misremembered?
>finger banged gauze + ACE into groin and armpits
wut

>>29890121
Cheers! I'll take notes on the Glasgow method!

To elaborate I have a FPOS-I course booked(UK), but I don't know what the US equivalent is, first responder maybe?

>>29890062
Any recommendations for learning materials and classes for somebody that is interested in learning more (apart from basic first aid & cpr)??

>>29890158
Depends where you live and how much money you have, there are a number of courses

though I'd give this a read before booking any tacticool looking ones
http://www.realfirstaid.co.uk/mediccourses/

>>29890149
>Seal on abdomin

If possible, this is about the best you can do. You're stopping bleeding, and you shouldn't be getting invasive without being a doctor.

>TQ placement

The 2 inch rule has been in place for decades. It got changed to high&bright for the reasons you listed. Faster and more reliable than 2 inches and it reduces fumbling you need to do while eyeballing the wound.

Also remember carrying more torniquet is better. If the first one doesn't work, leave it in place and slap on another.

>Finger bang

In an armpit or groin, a TQ or a seal will both not work well. You put on some gloves, grab gauze and stuff the gauze inside to soak up the blood. Then you keep the gauze in there with a pressure dressing on top. ACE wraps makes tremdous pressure dressings.

>>29890158
My training & experience is all military, unfortunately for your question.

>>29890149
You can read a bunch of useful stuff from CoTCCC here:
http://www.naemt.org/education/TCCC/guidelines_curriculum

One reason for top of limb TQ placement is because you may not be able to identify the exact location of the bleeding site, or there may be multiple bleeding sites, and if you accidentally apply the TQ too low then obviously it doesn't work that well. The arguments for 2" proximal to the bleeding site are that it can give slightly better occlusion because you don't have to compress as much flesh, and that the high TQ placement can result in complications later on. IIRC it's considered okay to do top of limb placement but it's recommended to move the TQ to 2" above later on, with the big caveat that I would not recommend fucking around with a already good TQ if you don't have a lot of hands on training. For people who will never have military medical training or get to do goat labs, I think it may be smarter to just TQ as proximal as possible and wait for EMS.

>>29890230
Oh ok thanks, I would have been tempted to pack the wound and compress it, I'll remember that

>>29890234
Ooh fantastic! Not sure how I missed those


With regards to out of date medical items, how bad could it be? I mean food remains edible for a while after it's 'expiration' date, and they typically aren't sealed...

>>29890158
Depending on where you live getting an EMT certificate or similar might be possible. In Europe there's a lot of volunteer organizations that provide disaster relief care (think ngo FEMAs, only split into medical, technical, ect)
But even these courses (and the more advanced ones) only teach you how to stabilize the patient and get him to a hospital. I'm German and worked as an A-EMT (according to Wikipedia that's the US equivalent) for two years, we have an emergency medical system more focused on stay-and-play (not simply load and go as you Americans) with emergency physicians who also drive around and come help in bad cases and even we mostly just stabilize and get to the hospital fast

For the thinks you want, you'd have to study medicine, become a surgeon and then take classes in battlefield surgery or work for MSF in some shitty war areas, otherwise all medical training always assumes that a trauma canter is reachable in adequate time

>>29890362
>With regards to out of date medical items, how bad could it be? I mean food remains edible for a while after it's 'expiration' date, and they typically aren't sealed...

Depends on the stuff, only somewhat sterile stuff like Gauze which today is good for 10years+, is also okay to use if out of date. I'd be critical with a lot of other stuff, you don't know if the plastics might lose their plasticizers or the rubber might crack, micro leaks might happen after some years so sterility might not be there anymore.
If SHTF you can use anything, but if you use out of date stuff under normal conditions in an emergency on real humans you might be liable for any damages (and there will be, emergency work is brutal) because they might have happened due to out of date equipment

>>29890462
Eh where I'm going liability won't be an issue

but I'll keep the elastic/plastic thing in mind, I'd forgotten about that