One-Hand Operated and Automatic Tourniquets for the Battlefield

The development of a tourniquet for battlefield application (Gooch et al. 2003) occurred in two stages. The first stage was the development of a one-handed ratcheting buckle strap tourniquet that would work reliably by itself and could be easily optionally augmented with an automatically controlled pneumatic pressure bladder. The second stage was the development of an automatically controlled pneumatic tourniquet that could occlude the blood flow within 15 s of application and would still function as a manually operated one-handed tourniquet in the event of a failure of the automatic system due to damage on the battlefield. 

The following sections discuss the requirements for a battlefield tourniquet based on the operational scenario of the modem battlefield and on the medical issues involving tourniquet use, before describing the development of the one-handed, automatic tourniquet. 

---