Bullseye: Bullets & Band-Aids®
ver the course of the past 37 years, I’ve found myself at a myriad of shooting ranges. They have been as simple as a small fi eld with a dirt mound berm and as elaborate as a massive indoor range with adjustable lighting and turning/moving targets. Regardless of the size or capability of your fi rearms training facility, the one thing that you must have on hand is a decent fi rst-aid kit. I have two kits at our facility; one is a small, general fi rst-aid kit to treat the minor injuries that happen often and a dedicated Gunshot Wound kit that I’ll get into later. Neither of these kits has to be large to be
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eff ective. Probably the most common injury I’ve seen at the range is “slide bite,” especially when offi cers transition from their domi- nant hand to their non-dominant hand. T ankfully, the worst injury we’ve had was a piece of a bullet jacket that came back off of a steel target and embedded itself in an offi cer’s forearm. Ask yourself, “Are the offi cers of my de-
partment capable of dressing a wound, stopping bleeding, or treating for possible shock until EMS arrives?” You’re fortunate if you have a nice indoor police range lo- cated in your jurisdiction and in a major metropolitan area. However, most ranges that I’ve been to are a considerable distance from emergency medical services, and most are diffi cult to locate—usually being tucked away from the general population due to the noise and fl ying bullets. T is is where training enters the picture.
Every offi cer needs to have some form of self-rescue equipment within quick reach and they need to know how to use it. When there’s a bullet in your leg, it’s certainly not the time to read the directions on how to apply a C.A.T.® tourniquet! Training should include how to apply and use the C.A.T. ® tourniquet, how to apply a hemostatic agent, how to properly dress a wound, and the various locations of pressure points. We’re not trying to make offi cers into Paramedics; we’re trying to keep them alive until the Paramedics arrive. My department incorporated a self-rescue segment into our patrol rifl e certifi cation program. During the class, each offi cer put a C.A.T. ® tour- niquet on themselves (without tightening),
41 The Police Marksman Summer 2015
Several excellent DVDs can provide real-world training to offi cers when it comes to treating a gunshot wound on the range until paramedics arrive.
fi rst with their dominant hand only and then with their non-dominant hand only (we have these excellent devices in each of the self-rescue kits in all of our patrol cars). T en we went over each piece of equipment in the self-rescue kits in the patrol cars. In- struction was provided to describe in detail what they are for, what they can do, what they cannot do, and how to use them.
Designated Gunshot Wound Kit T e designated gunshot wound kit at my department’s range has only the items that may be needed to control the bleeding of a gunshot wound and nothing else, no Band- Aids®, no alcohol pads, nothing unneces- sary. It has a pair of EMT shears to cut away clothing, a hemostatic agent, some 4”X4” gauze pads, a “Bloodstopper®” bandage, a gauze roll, and a C.A.T. tourniquet. It’s simple and small, but eff ective. It is fortunate that the Ohio Peace Offi -
cer Training Academy (OPOTA) off ers two classes along these lines: “Range Medical
Emergencies and the Firearms Instructor” and “Self-Aid and Buddy-Aid.” Your training for your offi cers doesn’t have to be that formal. As an addendum to the information we gave our offi cers in the Patrol Rifl e Certifi cation Course, I also mandated that they watch a gunshot wound fi rst-aid DVD and counted that toward their annual State-mandated CPT hours. Your local EMS or hospital emergency department may also be willing to put on a short course for your offi cers. Any training you can give your offi cers along these lines is better than no training at all. One other thing that I haven’t done yet, but plan to, is to incorporate this training into the fi rearms training. My plan is to have them shoot a portion of a course of fi re, take cover, apply a C.A.T. ® Tourniquet to them- selves (not tightened), and then continue shooting. I want to instill in them the idea that just because they are wounded, they are still able to treat themselves, stay in the fi ght, and/or reach a position of cover/safety from which they can be rescued.
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(& Tourniquets)
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