On more than one occasion, I heard the story about a guy who was using a chainsaw in his backyard to clean up some storm debris. As he was cutting a few of the fallen branches, he lost his footing and the running chainsaw came down on his leg, causing a tremendous wound. While his wife quickly called 9-1-1 and helped apply direct pressure, the femoral artery was cut and he died before the ambulance arrived. A tourniquet would’ve likely saved his life.
Tourniquet use goes back to at least the 4th century BC, when Alexander the Great had troops using tourniquets of leather and bronze. There are other documented uses during the Middle Ages with battlefield tourniquets, which were simple garrotes. In 1785, Sir Gilbert Blane advocated that, in battle, each Royal Navy sailor should carry a tourniquet:
“It frequently happens that men bleed to death before assistance can be procured, or lose so much blood as not to be able to go through an operation. In order to prevent this, it has been proposed, and on some occasions practiced, to make each man carry about him a
