Military News, News From Iraq & Afghanistan - Military Times

Surgeon pitches gear with built-in tourniquet

RICHMOND, Va. — While Dr. Keith Rose was an Army surgeon in the Middle East, he watched a colleague bleed to death when a truck in his convoy was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade.

His comrade took shrapnel through the thigh, and the frame of the truck was so mangled Rose could only sit and talk to him while he took his last breath.

“It really kind of frustrated me,” said Rose, who now does tactical medicine consultation and medical work overseas. “You’re sitting there holding a tourniquet and we couldn’t get it to him.”

Once back in the U.S., Rose approached BlackHawk, a Norfolk provider of military and law enforcement gear, with an idea to create clothes with built-in tourniquets, devices used to control bleeding in injured limbs.

“No matter how good the tourniquet is, if you can’t get it on the person at the right time, it doesn’t work,” Rose said. “It’s something that is so basic, so cost effective and so overwhelmingly life-changing.”

The system being tested for use in military uniforms, called Warrior Wear, has eight tourniquets — two in each sleeve and each pant leg. It is expected to retail for less than $200, but the military cost would depend on things like volume, the company said.

Military officials agree having readily accessible tourniquets is important.

“Tourniquets have allowed many people with devastating injuries to come back that in another time and another place would have died,” said Col. Patricia R. Hastings, director of the Army’s Department of Combat Medic Training based at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. “If you can save a medic a few minutes of time so he can concentrate on saving your life. It has great possibilities.”

And with the concept of battlefields changing, Rose said the system is more vital than ever.

“The way wars are fought now, there’s no defined lines of engagement,” Rose said. “The average cook could be hit with a rocket attack while he’s carrying potatoes to the mess hall.”

Advances in body armor have made protecting the core of a body easier, but more than 60 percent of injuries in military and law enforcement conflicts today are to the extremities, said Terry Naughton, director of industrial security at BlackHawk.

Naughton said 10 percent of deaths are from injuries where blood loss was uncontrollable.

“We are confident that the day that this hits the field, that lives will be saved,” Naughton said. “And if we save one person, we’ve done our job.”

BlackHawk was founded in 1993 by Mike Noell, a former Navy SEAL who fought in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.