Three Reasons Reversing DoD’s Improper Tourniquet Ban Will Help Save Lives

By Corey Russ and Adam Johnson

As a global provider of mission critical devices that simplify tactical medicine and dramatically empower medical operators to save lives, we are grateful that the recent settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice will once again allow the U.S. military full access to its life-saving tourniquets and Individual First Aid Kits (IFAKs). The historic agreement, which resulted from a lawsuit against the federal government for violations of federal procurement law, eliminates an alleged de facto ban on Combat Medical’s Tactical Mechanical Tourniquet (TMT), and is accompanied by a memo from the Command Surgeon of the U.S Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) stating that the TMT, and the IFAKs and Combat Lifesaver Bags they are included in, are available for Army use effective immediately.  

Here are three ways this reversal will immediately help save lives:

1. Soldiers will now have access to the most advanced tourniquets possible –– not equipment used in wars more than a decade ago. It’s for this very reason that the TMT was first recommended by the Defense Health Agency’s Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care.
2. The TMT tourniquet is a mission critical device specifically designed for massive hemorrhage control of an extremity in extreme environments, close combat or prolonged field care. Using lessons learned from the battlefield, the TMT was designed to ensure ease of application as either a self-aid or buddy aid to definitively achieve occlusion with a single tourniquet application, instantly treating a life-threatening hemorrhage and eliminating preventable deaths on the battlefield.
3. The settlement agreement allows the U.S. Army to more efficiently outfit soldiers with synchronized first aid kits. As a mechanism to improve readiness, Combat Medical’s IFAKs can be synchronized to ensure all components arrive together with 5-year usefulness, rather than current IFAKs which are created with individual components from multiple manufacturers that each have their own expiration date. This approach doubles the effective purchasing power of every dollar spent toward medical readiness and would simplify logistics to achieve kit readiness of 100 percent, which is the greatest opportunity to improve survivability.

The DoD decision to remove the artificial blocks which prevented the Army from providing U.S. soldiers with Combat Medical’s advanced, life-saving emergency medical equipment is a win for America’s warfighters. You can learn more here.