Tourniquet Application by Urban Police Officers: The Aurora, Colorado Experience.

BACKGROUND: Uncontrolled external hemorrhage is a common cause of preventable death. The Hartford Consensus recommendations presented the concept of a continuum of care, in which police officers should be considered an integral component of the emergency medical response to active shooter incidents. Recent publications have reported individual cases of tourniquet application by police officers. This report analyzed all documented cases of hemorrhage control using tourniquets applied by police officers in a single large metropolitan police department. METHODS: A retrospective computerized search of all public safety communications center reports and police officer documentation for cases of tourniquet application was conducted by searching for the word "tourniquet." Each case was evaluated for indication and appropriateness using Stop The Bleed criteria for tourniquet placement. In addition, police response time was compared to emergency medical services (EMS) response time in an effort to determine if there was a time difference in response to the bleeding patient that could potentially impact patient outcomes. RESULTS: Forty- three cases were identified over the 6-year period ending in December 2019. The majority of cases involved gunshot wounds and most were civilian victims. Injured police officers accounted for two cases (gunshot wound and dog bite). Review of the officers' narratives indicated that most applications appeared justified using the Stop The Bleed criteria (two cases were questionable if a tourniquet was necessary and one may have been placed in an incorrect location). On average, police arrived 4 minutes sooner than EMS did. CONCLUSION: Several reports in the literature document the success of police officer application of tourniquets to control limb hemorrhage. Most of the reports involved a small number of case reports. This is the largest case series to date from a single urban police department.

The Hartford Consensus on Active Shooters: Implementing the Continuum of Prehospital Trauma Response.

BACKGROUND: Active shooter incidents have led to the recognition that the traditional response paradigm of sequential response and scene entry by law enforcement, first responders, and emergency medical service (EMS) personnel produced delays in care and suboptimal victim outcomes. The Hartford Consensus Group developed recommendations to improve the response to and outcomes from active shooter events and urged that a continuum of care be implemented that incorporates not only EMS response, but also the initiation of care by law enforcement officers and potentially by lay bystanders. OBJECTIVE: To develop and implement tiered educational programs designed to teach police officers and lay bystanders the principles of initial trauma care and bleeding control using as a foundation the U.S. military's Tactical Combat Casualty Care course and the guidelines of the Committee on Tactical Emergency Casualty Care. DISCUSSION: The Tactical Casualty Care for Law Enforcement and First Responders course is a 1-day program combining didactic lecture, hands-on skills stations, and clinical scenarios designed primarily for police officers. The Bleeding Control for the Injured is a 2- to 3-h program for the potential citizen responder in the skills of hemorrhage control. In addition, we document the application of these skills by law enforcement officers and first responders in several real-life incidents involving major hemorrhage. CONCLUSIONS: Developing and implementing tiered educational programs for hemorrhage control will improve response by police officers and the lay public. Educating law enforcement officers in these skills has been demonstrated to improve trauma victim survival.