Bleeding Control With Limb Tourniquet Use in the Wilderness Setting: Review of Science

The purpose of this review is to summarize tourniquet science for possible translation to wilderness settings. Much combat casualty data has been studied since 2005, and use of tourniquets in the military has changed from a last resort to first aid. The US Government has made use of tourniquets a health policy aimed to improve public access to bleeding control items. International authorities believe that education in first aid should be universal, as all can and should learn first aid. The safety record of tourniquet use is mixed, but users are reliably safe if trained well. Well-designed tourniquets can reliably attain bleeding control, may mitigate risk of shock progression, and may improve survival rates, but conclusive proof of a survival benefit remains unclear in civilian settings. Even a war setting has a bias toward survivorship by sampling mostly survivors in hospitals. Improvised tourniquets are less reliable than well-designed tourniquets but may be better than none. The tourniquet model used most often in 2016 by the US military is the Combat Application Tourniquet (C-A-T), and civilians use an array of various models, including C-A-T. Evidence on tourniquet use to date indicates that most uses are safe and effective in civilian settings. Future directions for study relevant to the wilderness setting include consideration of research priorities, study of the burdens of injury or capability gaps in caregiving for various wilderness settings, determination of the skill needs of outdoor enthusiasts and wilderness caregivers, and survey of wilderness medicine stewards regarding bleeding control.