How to Use a Tourniquet

Video Transcript

My name is Alv Rios and I am a paramedic with Lansing Mercy Ambulance on behalf of Expert Village. In this clip we are going to over tourniquet use to help control blood loss. Tourniquets should be used only as a last resort for blood loss control. A tourniquet should be applied once you've came to a conclusion that you are not able to control the blood loss with direct pressure, elevation and pressure point combined. Once you realize that it's not controlling the blood loss what you are saying to yourself is I'm now going to put a tourniquet on. This tourniquet is going to cut off complete blood flow to the extremity. Here again by lacking the extremity from getting the blood flow it needs it's going to actually start to die and tissue narcosis will begin. What that means is by putting on the tourniquet you are saving the person's life from the blood loss but you are sacrificing that limb and it shouldn't have to be amputated if put on correctly. This is an example of a commercial product you can buy. Anything can be used similar to this such as a piece of clothing or belt. Once you have opened this from the package you will have the triangular bandage. What this is very similar to is a bandanna. I'm not going to open it all of the way up because for the sake of this I want it to look just like this. What you want to have is approximately two inches wide of material. You always want to go approximately two inches above the injury site also. For this sake of this example we are going to say that I am loosing blood from just above my knee here and it's an arterial bleed. Which means it is bright red squirting blood. I've been unable to control it with direct pressure and elevation of my leg and by pushing on my femoral artery right here I was still not able to control the blood loss. I then move into my tourniquet. It's important to remember the two by two rule. This is my injury site. You want to go two inches above the injury site and you want to have the material to use your tourniquet, approximately two inches wide. So what you want to do is put it right over above the injury site, you then want to make sure this is extremely tight and come up to the top and make a small knot and try to get that as tight as you can. You are not able to actually pull this tight enough to completely elude the blood flow. It is very important that this is extremely tight because if you only put it on partially what you are going to do is squeeze the blood vessels which is still going to have blood flow and going to cause the bleeding but it is actually going to increase blood flow because the body is going to think that it is having a lack of the blood. So it is going to try to increase the blood flow to that injury site. So it's very important that if you decide to put on a tourniquet you are going to completely elude all blood flow to the extremity distal that spot. Next you want to use something; I am going to use a pencil for this. You can use a pen. Anything long a little bit hard, you can eve use a stick. Just set it right over the injury site. What you are then going to do is just wrap the ends around like this and give it another tie here. This is just tying into place. What you are now joint to do is start to actually spin it around. As you spin it, it is going to tighten here. I am going to stop it here for the sake of I don't want to cut the blood flow off completely to my leg. But that will be sufficient enough. Once you have it as tight as you think you can go or to the breaking point of whatever object you used what you then want to do is secure it into place. If I let this go it will start to spin it's self around again and release. So what I want to do is lock it in place. I do this by taking my two ends that I have left and wrapping it around and then tying its self back together again. Keep in mind it's going to release just a little bit but it should stay in place.

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