Quick Clot is catching on like sliced bread and brown bottles for beer.

It is now available from many sources, either by itself or in trauma kits.

This link will lead you to information about the product and where to get it:
http://www.z-medica.com/

Now there is no excuse to bleed to death from a goring.

lawndart

Lawndart,
I have budgeted for this so it will be available in all of our police cars.

I wonder if there really are so many knuckleheads running around that we have to put "Do not ingest or inhale" on everything made?

Thanks for the link ;o)

quote:

Now there is no excuse to bleed to death from a goring.

That will take half the fun out of buffalo hunting, won't it? (LOL)

Reviews are pretty mixed on the effectiveness of this stuff. Some military guys that used it in actual combat situations believed it was rather useless on large wounds. May be better than nothing though. In reading about Quick Clot I ran across another similar type product. Check it out

http://www.traumadex.com/

FWIW, I have had lenghty talks with the Norwegian militarys cheif surgeon about QuikClot and Traumadex, and they have found that the benefits aren't as great as one might hope. When testing it on live (drugged) swine with traumatic gunshot wounds, they found regular compresses combined with pressure (basic procedure in the field) to be pretty much the same with or without the new "wonder powders". No matter what the marketing says. Word from US troops in the field have had the same conclussions according to him.

However, from what I have understood, I have no doubt that both products work well on smaller less serious wounds. But then it would appear that a compress and pressure would do the same there too...

How do all you surgeons here feel about receiving injured with this stuff in the wound?

Hope it's not like trying to change a tubeless tire that has had Slime used for a flat!!!

What a mess to change and cleanup!

Minkman

I have seen and used a similar product for a couple of years now. We use a similar product distributed by Zee Medical.
I own a commercial glass company and we have used this stuff on normal day to day glass cuts and wounds. For use on cuts, the size and nature I deal with it works fantastic. It's in every First Aid Kit. In the shop and in the trucks.

quote:

What a mess to change and cleanup!

Minkman,

I'm not a surgeon, nor even a doctor. But I was told by our military cheif surgeon that he was not very pleased with QuikClot when irrigating the wounds. He basically felt it was a bit messy, and also felt there was a risk that the personell doing so could get the product splattered in their eyes if not very careful. I don't think it would be a good idea to have grains of QuikClot in ones eyes!

He also mentioned that while the products did induce clotting, they were very fragile clots. Which I guess it is good enough though for smaller cuts and wounds.

Basically, he felt there were no real life saving battle field miracles on the market yet. Lets hope that R&D continues, so that something "miracle like" does come out soon.

quote:

Reviews are pretty mixed on the effectiveness of this stuff. Some military guys that used it in actual combat situations believed it was rather useless on large wounds. May be better than nothing though

quote:

I'm not a surgeon, nor even a doctor. But I was told by our military cheif surgeon that he was not very pleased with QuikClot when irrigating the wounds. He basically felt it was a bit messy, and also felt there was a risk that the personell doing so could get the product splattered in their eyes if not very careful. I don't think it would be a good idea to have grains of QuikClot in ones eyes!

He also mentioned that while the products did induce clotting, they were very fragile clots. Which I guess it is good enough though for smaller cuts and wounds.

You can buy this stuff for $15.00 - $20.00 USD per packet now and put it in your first aid kit. If I run into you in the game fields a few minutes after you have started bleeding from a major wound I will sell you a packet for 500.00 Euros (Krugerands also accepted) .

Gentlemen,
Staying alive is not a matter of miracles. It is a matter of planning, training and will. The point of Quick Clot, compresses, direct pressure, wound elevation and tournequit use is to keep you alive until you make it to the surgeon for definitive care. Most surgeons would rather pick Quick Clot out of a live person's wound than look at a dead person's wound and say, "too bad he croaked, that is surely a pretty wound".

lawndart

Lawndart, what do you think of the battle paks on that website?

And what do you think about using a syringe to squirt hydrogen peroxide through fang holes left by a leopard? Would we be better off squirting salt water through, Jack Daniels, or just letting the fellow wait for 12-18 hours until he is in a clinic?

Thanks.

The BattlePack is nice because it is very handy to throw one into the glove box of the hunting vehicle, into your pack or even into a cargo pocket. If someone is really bleeding use a t-shirt to wipe off the puddle of blood, dump on the Quick Clot and cinch down a compressive bandage. Then apply direct pressure over the whole package.

Cat bites are very nasty to deal with. The worst bacterium in their mouth is called Pasteurella Multocida. There is usually some Staph. Aureus in the wound as well. The best thing to wash the wound with is a lot of sterile saline solution. You likely won't have any handy. A good field expedient measure is to put 20-30 drops of betadine (povidone iodide) into a quart or liter of clean water. A large syringe is best for irrigating wounds. You won't have one of those handy either. A field expedient measure for that problem is to use a squeeze bottle like the ones you can get from http://www.sinclairintl.com/ for holding bore solvent in. I keep a clean one in my aid kit.
Assume that all cat bites are infected from the get go. Don't waste any time getting antibiotics on board. Augmentin (amoxicillin/clavulanic acid) is good. If the patient is allergic to penicillins, then doxycycline would be a good choice.
If the puncture wounds start looking swollen and pusy use a scalpel or sharp knife to open things up. Give some of the Jack Daniels to the patient and take the rest yourself to steady your hand.

lawndart

Have just used a quick clot packet that was left by a mate earlier this year on an axe wound. Very impressed!

Also, most Ph's carry saline drips, wich I have used to irrigate wounds. Peroxide is still the favourite and seems very effective at cleaning wounds when no antibiotics are available (eg Lance Nesbit 2 years back to got a tummy tuck from a leopard, was liberal with the peroxide and carried on hunting- saw a doc a month later.) but the scaring seems horific.

I am a surgeon, and I work in a large city hospital which has a large trauma center.I have had occaision to remove topical hemostatic agents (that is what we call these materials in surgery) from both traumatic and non-traumatic wounds. It is really not a big deal at all. In fact we use a number of these agents, some very complex, in surgery. I generally remove them prior to closing. It is far more important to ascertain the site and nature of the bleeding in the field so that "effective" compression can be applied. All to often we receive patients who have relatively innocuous wounds but have lost a huge amount of blood due to the type of dressing applied. Most often, this dressing is comprised of many layers of gauze and wound dressings held in place by a very tightly wrapped Ace bandage or something similar. This has the effect of holding a big pillow on the wound without any compression. That big wad will not only absorb a huge amount of the patients blood but it will effectively negate any compression effect.

Geronimo

I am a small town surgeon, and our "knife and gun club" isn't too active. Haven't had the opportunity to see if these topical hemostatic agents really make that much of a difference. As someone above guessed, I would definitely have a live patient with a whole mess of fragile clot than someone who has exsanguinated.

I have been to presentations made by some of the surgeons of the US armed forces at the last two meeting of the American College of Surgeons, and they didn't make much if any mention of these products.

Geronimo is right on about these "compression" dressings. Best thing is to use direct pressure with a minimum amount of gauze.

As far as irrigating wounds, a normal saline solution is the very best to use. Most important is the amount of whatever is used, there's an old surgicalk saying "dilution is the solution to pollution."

A good friend of mine from back at Ft Bliss happens to be an Army Doc who just returned from 13 months in Iraq. He treated a lot of gunshot and shrapnel wounds, a lot of which have used this and similar products. He feels that on many occasions that the rapid treatment using them made the diference between life and death. He also agrees that the main factor is immediate first aid and proper compression, but that the coagulant agent gave the wounded a much greater edge on the borderline wounds.

What about for a non-life threatening wound, like a superficial head cut or hand laceration. They bleed like hell. Would this stuff be good to stem the flow?

-Steve

They work well for that.

The best thing for a scalp laceration is a disposable surgical staple unit. You just pull the wound closed and put in a row of staples about 3/16" apart. Takes about ten seconds; then you can get right back to fishing. You can get these from the veterinarian supply store (I use them on hog/coon/cougar dogs). If you can't find them send me an e-mail since I have an Ooh-Ree-Gone license. I have used staples on my own hand in the past; just be careful not to snag a tendon. Your hunting or fishing partner will be more than happy to staple you up: "Hey Steve, no problem, anything I can do to help."

lawndart

How the hell do you know my friends? Shoot, they'd probably want to practice on me just for fun...

Thanks a bunch for the offer. I'll see if I can find a set. If not I'll drop you a line.

-Steve