Medicine-X Every Day Carry June 3-4 2017 AAR

KR Training recently hosted and co-taught the Medicine X Every Day Carry course, taught by Caleb Causey of Lone Star Medics, at the A-Zone Range.  The two day course teaches hands on medic and scene security skills useful in that time between the injury and the arrival of first responders that can provide a higher level of security and care.  The second day provides opportunities for students to apply medic skills in multiple scenarios where shooting, tactics, and communication are also integrated.

Caleb and I discuss the course in more detail in an episode of the Modern Self Protection podcast with Ben Brannam.

DAY ONE

Day one was mostly spent in the classroom, learning patient assessment skills, tourniquet application, wound packing, and other fundamentals.

The topic of what to carry every day, and how to carry it, was covered in depth. One takeaway for me from this course was Caleb’s observation that clotting gauze can be used more places on the body that a tourniquet can, so it may be more important to carry than a TQ, particularly for use on children.  I explained to the class that based purely on likelihood of need and risk analysis that I had changed my own daily carry to prioritize a tourniquet/med gear over a spare magazine, in situations where carrying both on my person was difficult, because the odds of needing the medical gear was likely much higher than the need for the spare magazine.  Obviously having both items available is best, but in non-permissive environments, compromises may be necessary.

Lunch on day one was Texas’ best brisket, from Snow’s BBQ in Lexington, about 15 minutes from the A-Zone.  Snow’s had just been crowned #1 in the state (again) by Texas Monthly. After a 90 minute wait in line, with 200 people behind me, I headed back to the A-Zone with multiple briskets and some pork shoulder.

Part of the afternoon of day 1 was spent working on integrating tourniquet use into a live fire drill where the shooter engaged a target…

retreated to cover (gun placed on ground to simulate the effects of an injury and as a safer substitute for reholstering)…

applied a tourniquet to the designated limb…

picked up the pistol and re-engaged the target.

The goal for this drill was under 30 seconds, with at least 5 hits on the target (3 at start, 2 from cover) and a properly applied TQ.  We ran some additional drills working on team tactics, communication and movement, and one drill integrating that material with the application of a TQ and target re-engagement by one team member.

DAY TWO

After some additional classroom material

and instruction on drags and carries,

we split the class into teams and ran them through a scenario in the wooded part of the A-Zone property, searching for their missing friend (“Rescue” Randy), who was discovered down by the pond, injured, with multiple threats (falling steel targets) nearby.

Randy had to be assessed…

moved to cover…
his injuries treated…


and injuries to other team members that occurred during the rescue had to be treated.

Then Randy was evacuated out of the area back to a vehicle.
Additional scenarios were run in the shoot house berm, using a variety of paper and 3D targets.



KR Training hosts Lone Star Medics classes several times a year, typically offering Dynamic First Aid, Medicine X-EDC and Unthinkable classes every 12 months.   All of those courses are also available as traveling classes available anywhere in the US.

 

One Comment

  1. Pingback: KR Training June 2017 newsletter – Notes from KR

Comments are closed.