SOFT-T tourniquet

We're now going to look at the Soft T tourniquet. Now a Soft T tourniquet is very similar to the CAT T tourniquet, but it's got a couple of design features that are different. With the actual tourniquet, how it's actually secured is a little bit different, because with this one, you wind it around, and then you have to apply the peg here into this metal clip. Now, this is a little bit harder to use than the CAT tourniquet, but it still works very, very effectively. Just here you've got the clip which holds it in place and the strap. Now it's harder to apply this to yourself if you needed to, but it can be done. It is a little bit more fiddly to actually pull this through this buckle in order to tighten it up. Now how we actually use it, is very, very similar. 

You'll open up the tourniquet so that it will slide over an arm or a leg. We then slide that over the are remembering.  Look at where the joints are, we want to pop it 5 centimetres above. We then need to pull it tight. Once it's tight, you can then take the toggle here, wind it around. And we keep winding that around until it's very tight. Clip it in place, and then the tourniquet is on.

Now if you put this on a real person's arm, it's going to be a lot tighter than this, but it's hard to do it on this training arm here. But you will need to apply a lot of pressure. Once you've applied it onto their arm, you need to note the time. And with this one, there's a little tag on the end of the tourniquet where you can write the time. This is a little bit harder because if the tag was here, it's much easier for the doctor to see. But most doctors will know that the time is written somewhere so you can pop it down in there. It stays in place. It's only removed by a doctor in a hospital. 

We're not taking these off ourselves as first aiders. Once you put it on, assess whether the bleeding has stopped, check the pulse. If it has stopped the bleeding, then you can treat what you got here. If it hasn't stopped it, then obviously you need to look at other ways, like second tourniquets or hemostatic dressings, or direct pressure. And finally, if you've practised with one of these on a fake arm or a drainpipe, or something like that, you need to reset it ready for use. We need to pull that back. So what you do is you pull that through so it's laying flat, and then you can fold the tourniquet up, and then get that ready for use for next time.