CitizenAid Tourni-Key Plus tourniquet

What we are going to do now is look at the Tourni-key Plus. Now, this is a very simple to use tourniquet that you can use on any catastrophic bleed from a limb. So, the kit itself is all in this bag here. You can either buy these as an individual bag, all sealed up like this, or we also sell these as parts of bleed kits. So we do an economical bleed kit, and we also do others, or you can have multiple packs of these. So if you are in a location where potentially there could be a terrorist attack or gunshots or knife wounds, and you might have, need lots of tourniquets, then you can have lots of these in one pack. On the side's a little nick, so you can very easily just tear it open, and once you've torn it open, just pull out the contents. And what you have got are three bits, there is the main instruction card here. And in the instruction card, it tells you all about how to use the tourniquet. And then if you open it up, there is more information in there exactly how to use it. So with the instructions, there are very simple picture diagrams.

The Tourni-key itself is very strong plastic. It may look a bit odd, but it is a very simple way of tightening a piece of material around a limb. Now, you could use something like a tie or something like that, but you do not really wanna use something very tight that is going to cut into the skin because it literally will, you can get a lot of pressure. The whole point of putting Tourni-key on is to stop a bleed. So, in this example here, we have got someone with an amputation. So, we need to put the tourniquet on to stop the bleed. So, you will need to crush through the tissues of the body in order to block off all of the arteries and the venous return to stop that bleed. The final thing in the pack is a triangular bandage, and this is just a standard bandage, which is the material type of bandage. So, this would just unwrap, and then you've got yourself the Bain triangular bandage.

So once you got your triangular bandage out, then you need to open it up. And you open it up, so you have got the long end, so this is the, a 90-degree corner at the bottom, and then just roll it up into what they call a broad fold bandage. So it literally just goes through this and just wind it around until you got no more to wrap up anymore... And then what we need to do with that is place it around the limb. Now, for this example, we have got a limb here, so you want to put it just above the limb that has been amputated. You do not want to ever put these over a joint. Pull it through in a half knot, and just tie that securely. And then, you are going to be putting a lot of pressure on here, so they have a little card that you can tuck underneath the bandage. So you just slide that underneath, that will just avoid any risk that when they tie a knot on, it is going to pinch too much onto the skin. We then need to take the Tourni-key, we need to just secure that in place. So if you have got two people, you can get your helper to do this, but what we will do is just tie it up and we are just tying that in place. So, it is literally going across here, and then we can always just tie it on again... So that is now in place. So what you are going to do then, is you are going to wind that around and apply pressure.

Now, this is on a mannequin leg. Now, if it was on a real person, as you wind it around, it would dig into the skin and cut the circulation. You will not do it so much on this one. So you literally just wind that around and you can get a lot of pressure on this until it is tight. So once it is tight since we have got now, take this end here and we are gonna just tuck it underneath the bandage... So, once it is gone through and then tuck it back in place. Now, this is easier to do on a real person, the problem with these legs is there is not much give in them. So that is now secured in place, it is tucked underneath the bandage, the tourniquet is on. If we needed to apply more pressure, we can turn it around another 180 degrees and tuck it in on this side or another 180 degrees and tuck it back over here. You tighten it up until the bleeding stops, so you will see the bleeding's stopped. The other key thing we need to do now is we need to note the time that this is going on. That is important. So you can write the time, you can write it on the patient's forehead, or on their head or somewhere, or at least note it down somewhere because you do need to tell the EMS what time this went on.

Once it is on, you need to stabilize the patient. You need to treat them for shock. You need to be with them, you need to talk to them, you need to communicate. This is gonna be a very scary thing, it is going to be painful as well, but once that is on, and you tell them how important it is to put this on because we must keep as much of this blood in the body as possible. Whole-time that you are waiting for the EMS to arrive, just keep an eye on the limb. Make sure it is not started bleeding. If it is, you can apply more pressure on it, or you can always put another tourniquet on above this one, but remember, you do not want to be going over a joint, so if it is close to the bottom of the knee, the only place you can put it is higher up, then you would need to put that higher up. If you are interested in finding more information about the Tourni-key, or you want to purchase one, then go to our website, which is firstaidonline.co.uk. You can email us on suppliers at protrainings.uk, or you can give us a ring and we give you more information about the Tourni-Key and also the other bleed packages that we offer.