Students will learn to stop traumatic bleeding from gunshot and knife wounds using the latest pressure bandages, tourniquets, and hemostatic agents. Self care and care under fire will also be addressed.

Students will also learn simple patient assessment techniques, how to treat a sucking chest wound and tension pneumothorax as well as field fracture immobilization and expedient c-spine immobilization. Options for assuring clear airways (including improvised surgical airways) will be practiced.

In addition, students will learn how to treat themselves and families in the event of a long-term breakdown in our current medical system. Wound cleaning and disinfection under field conditions, injection of local anesthesia and wound closure (including minor suturing) will be practiced in our “trauma lab”. If time permits, students will integrate all of these skills in several practical scenarios.

Information about what types of drugs to stockpile for natural disasters or a collapse in the health care system will be discussed, along with methods for legally acquiring those pharmaceuticals. The instructor will also discuss what items should be included in a comprehensive medical kit and how to improvise those items in an austere environment.