Mike Noell, President and CEO of Blackhawk Products Group announced the addition of Blackhawk’s Integrated Tourniquet System into their new Warrior Wear® apparel line. At recent events directed towards the Law Enforcement and Military Medical Community, Blackhawk announced that the revolutionary system was in the final phases of testing and should be available during Q1 of Calendar 2008.
“At Blackhawk we get up every morning dedicated to using our resources to help save lives,” explained Noell. “When medics and doctors that deal with combat and tactical medical needs see the system, they at once understand the immediate life saving potential. Four tourniquets in the pants and four tourniquets in the shirt (two in the short sleeve version), correctly positioned and oriented to the upper and lower extremities, are immediately accessible under existing gear and can be operated by the wearer, their buddy, or a medic.
Immediate application minimizes loss of blood, the single greatest medical problem resulting in death from injuries sustained to the extremities among our troops today. An additional feature is that our design allows users to train with the system over and over rather than having to replace each tourniquet after a single use, whether during training or in the field using the same system they will wear in tactical operation,” further explained Noell.
“The Integrated Tourniquet System (I.T.S.™) was the brainchild of Dr. Keith Rose. Dr. Rose, a tactical medicine consultant for Blackhawk’s Special Operations Division, Blackhawk Gear was in the military for several years on a forward surgical team and has extensive field experience in trauma and burns. He is currently working with humanitarian groups worldwide and worked directly with Blackhawk!’s R&D team to make sure that the system met real world requirements, and was also consistent with the medical training doctrine typically used by Military, Law Enforcement and the Civilian communities,” elaborated Eric Yeates, Director of Blackhawk’s R&D. “Blackhawk’s Injection Molding Team collaborated on the patent pending design of the Tourniquet System; our Apparel design teams designed the pants and shirts to carry the system, and our Factory’s rapid prototyping capability allowed us to get sample systems into the hands of users very early in the design process so we could incorporate their input from the beginning of the project,” concluded Yeates.
“The majority of preventable deaths come from loss of blood resulting from leg and arm wounds that is not protected by body armor. Sixty percent of preventable combat deaths are from extremity bleeding and 50-70% of all combat injuries are extremity wounds,” explained Dr. Rose*. The fact that you can always find the tourniquet with the Integrated Tourniquet system and the speed with which you can immediately apply it will dramatically impact not only loss of life but also the amount of time that it takes to recover from extreme blood loss injuries.” Dr. Rose further explains.
