Austere Medicine: Weekend roll up

The week end November 14th and 15th was a trauma heavy training blow out here at CAGmain! We had 2 full crews of 4 students a day and burned thru multiple high threat TACMED scenarios. [caption id="attachment_2451" align="aligncenter" width="660"] Intro to Austere Medicine[/caption] Medical emergencies are statistically the most likely event you will encounter in a disaster. Take a look at the headlines, its easy to see why civilian trauma skills can and will pay off if the right person with the right skills is ready to take action..... Here's a quick breakdown of a few take home points for the students as a whole (both groups):

• Remember to do the "Meat Check" following pulses
• PRACTICE taking vital signs. Pulses can be hard to find.......
• If the supplies are available, dress wounds that have been treated by a tourniquet for infection control.
• If you have limited medical supplies, focus on untreated limbs before the tourniquet limb.
• Do the chest exam the same way every time and learn what normal feels like. This way when a patient presents an injury it sets off your red flag during a high stress event.
• Commit to one role or the other. At this phases of your medical career its important to decide definitively to either perform the medical procedure or to address the threat to you and your patient. Don't try and apply a tourniquet AND shoot bad guy. As we saw this week end, its a recipe for an ineffective treatment.
• Know your gear. If you're using a new IFAK or someone else's gear, take a second to make sure you know EXACTLY what your using. GEN6 and GEN7 CAT TQs are out there and in some cases apply differently. The 2 seconds you take to confirm the gear prevents the two minutes of redoing a treatment that was applied incorrectly.
•  Super glue creates a super mess...... Be deliberate when opening your chest seals.
• The emergency blankets in the CAG Tier 1 IFAKs work. Every student had a chance to be the patient and was exposed to the cold floor, then insulated with the blanket. Use them....
• Watch the membership videos to rehearse your assessment sequence.

ADMIN NOTES:

• Make sure students come class with clothes they are willing to get stained and dirty! There will be blood!

The total for this weekend: 8 students and they all earned their Austere Medicine tabs! As you would expect, CAG members show up ready to learn and ready to work. Both classes worked hard and were able to get full training effect and value as civilians learning austere/TCCC medicine. We had variety of students that participated in training this week end. Young and old, hurt and healthy, male and female.

Great job to the students, ya'll kicked ass!