After spending a long weekend in Maui with my family, I was settling into the five-hour flight home to Los Angeles when a flight attendant made an urgent announcement requesting the help of any medical professionals on board. As it turned out, there was just one person on the entire wide-body jet qualified to respond to the call — a nurse, and he was sitting right next to me.
He made his way to the front of the plane with a flight attendant and disappeared for a while. When he returned, I gently inquired about the wellbeing of the passenger in need and we got to talking. Just as I was, the nurse, too, was traveling with his family, including a spouse and two school-aged children. Noticing my kids, he offered me this piece of advice: “I travel with one first-aid tool wherever I go, a Combat Application Tourniquet (CAT), and you might want to do the same.”
To buy: amazon.com, $33
It works by way of a durable windlass system with a free-moving internal band that applies pressure uniformly around the circumference of the extremity. When it’s fully tightened, the bleeding stops and the windlass locks into place. That’s when you secure a hook-and-loop windlass retention strap to keep the pressure on the wound on until you can get to a hospital, which is how my nurse seatmate told me how he uses it in emergency situations. Watch this helpful tutorial video from North American Rescue so you’ll be better prepared on how to use it.
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Additionally, the compact, nylon tourniquet weighs just 2 ounces and its 5.6-inch by 17.8-inch by 6.4-inch frame packs easily into any carry-on suitcase, purse, or backpack.
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At the time of publishing, the price was $33.
