What you can do.

A member here asked me what they could do to help in response to all of the craziness at play these days.

I offer the following:

Get a trauma kit and learn how to use it. The very basics are a tourniquet (either a CAT or Soft-T wide), a pressure bandage, and a chest seal. There are numerous places to order them online.

I strongly encourage you to buy directly from an actual medical supplier such as Tactical Medical Solutions, North American Rescue, etc. Unfortunately, counterfeiting is running rampant, and some low quality counterfeits have made their way to places like Amazon. There have been numerous reports of the counterfeits breaking when used. The actual medical suppliers get their products directly from the manufacturer.

Do not use your actual carry tourniquet for training/practice.

Typically, the line of thought is that a person carries a kit for their own personal use. Even in a team environment, if dude-A gets hit, dude-B uses dude-A's kit to treat dude-A.

Being able to quickly treat your own wounds is actually extremely helpful in such an incident as resources are easily overwhelmed, and if you have solved part of the problem, you have helped. If you aren't hit, you could help treat someone else.

As for engaging the bad guy(s), let your conscience be your guide. Getting your loved ones out of harms way is helpful.

If you decide to engage, remember, other parties might not know that you are a good guy.

 

We formed a partnership with our local trauma center, Athens Regional Medical Center, and they funded the purchase of trauma kits for each deputy as well has hundreds of more kits that will the pre-staged in the schools.

Once we get our personnel and school personnel up to speed, we are going to begin offering training and kits to county residents.

 

The reason for the in-county restriction is that I can't turn away a county resident because a non-resident took a spot in a class. I had to adopt the practice after someone, a member here actually, plastered our citizen firearm schedule all over the web and other places, and we were overrun.

There are several companies that do such training. I will soon be certified to teach basic bleeding control, but there are better offerings out there than I will initially be able to provide. (By "I", I mean my training company and not the courses offered to citizens by the SO).

 

Two companies that I can recommend for training are Lone Star Medics and Dark Angel Medical.

LSM just taught a class in Marietta. I met the owner at a conference at which we both taught. I was in the class in Marietta.

I have not had any first hand experience with Dark Angel, but people I trust have recommended them. They have some upcoming courses in the Atlanta area.

 

What hijack? I started a thread about getting trauma care training, and you are offering trauma care training. That's not a hijack.

The best prices I have been able to find on the tourniquets alone are in the $30 range.