Hawgbonz and I went to the 1-hour class yesterday, and I felt very compelled to write this! 
All I can say is THANK YOU to those who mentioned the class....I learned an AMAZING amount of stuff considering that I thought I had a pretty solid background in trauma medicine, and my outlook has changed. I still would advocate for proper training, but even that is less of a concern after the class. "Old school" medical training always said that after 2 hours with a tourniquet, a person is as likely as not to lose a limb or at least sustain significant nerve/tissue damage just from the tourniquet. I had a concern that someone might think something is a "lot of blood" and apply a tourniquet that wasn't necessary and that the person with the tourniquet on would start to suffer tissue damage before they could even get to an appropriately higher level of care. She said that current knowledge shows that tissue damage doesn't occur for close to 8 hours if then. I had previously been adamantly against Hawgbonz carrying a tourniquet, exactly because a lot of non-medical people are quite impressed by what is truly not a lot of blood, and given where his hunt camp is, he'd likely be well outside of that 2-hour window that was in my head. After the class yesterday, I am all for it. He even got to practice self-application of a tourniquet, and we talked on the way home about which types were easiest for him to apply.
Another thing he had always said that I kind of pooh-poohed as not helpful was what to do if one didn't have a medical kit/gauze or 4x4s with them. He said he always has "necessary paper" (i.e., paper towels that serve multiple purposes), and I said that I didn't think that would be a good idea to use if he were ever in a situation because it is not designed to maintain its shape when wet, and it would be difficult to put an adequate amount of pressure on using paper towels. Now I know that while it's true that paper towels wouldn't be optimum, it's any port in a storm, and if that's what you have, that's what you'd use.
Overall, despite it only being a one-hour class, it was truly eye-opening and changed my perspective dramatically. Thank you to those who took the time on our previous thread to mention the class...very much appreciated.
All I can say is THANK YOU to those who mentioned the class....I learned an AMAZING amount of stuff considering that I thought I had a pretty solid background in trauma medicine, and my outlook has changed. I still would advocate for proper training, but even that is less of a concern after the class. "Old school" medical training always said that after 2 hours with a tourniquet, a person is as likely as not to lose a limb or at least sustain significant nerve/tissue damage just from the tourniquet. I had a concern that someone might think something is a "lot of blood" and apply a tourniquet that wasn't necessary and that the person with the tourniquet on would start to suffer tissue damage before they could even get to an appropriately higher level of care. She said that current knowledge shows that tissue damage doesn't occur for close to 8 hours if then. I had previously been adamantly against Hawgbonz carrying a tourniquet, exactly because a lot of non-medical people are quite impressed by what is truly not a lot of blood, and given where his hunt camp is, he'd likely be well outside of that 2-hour window that was in my head. After the class yesterday, I am all for it. He even got to practice self-application of a tourniquet, and we talked on the way home about which types were easiest for him to apply.
Another thing he had always said that I kind of pooh-poohed as not helpful was what to do if one didn't have a medical kit/gauze or 4x4s with them. He said he always has "necessary paper" (i.e., paper towels that serve multiple purposes), and I said that I didn't think that would be a good idea to use if he were ever in a situation because it is not designed to maintain its shape when wet, and it would be difficult to put an adequate amount of pressure on using paper towels. Now I know that while it's true that paper towels wouldn't be optimum, it's any port in a storm, and if that's what you have, that's what you'd use.
Overall, despite it only being a one-hour class, it was truly eye-opening and changed my perspective dramatically. Thank you to those who took the time on our previous thread to mention the class...very much appreciated.
