www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-tourniquets,0,2435708.storygallery
As an Army surgeon in the Middle East, Dr. Keith Rose watched a colleague bleed to death when a truck in his convoy was hit by a rocket- propelled grenade.
Special Report
The U.S. Army is launching a multimillion-dollar campaign to equip all its combat troops with a futuristic bandage designed to stop massive bleeding from battlefield injuries, despite doubts about its effectiveness and the development of a cheaper product that many scientists believe works better.
As the Pentagon begins a hurried effort to distribute modern tourniquets to every soldier and Marine in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army and the Marine Corps also have decided to make the simple medical tools standard equipment for more than 1 million service members throughout the world.
Special Report
WASHINGTON - The Army has ordered an additional 172,000 modern tourniquets for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it will begin distributing them next month, with the expectation that each soldier will be equipped with the life-saving device sometime this summer, officials said.
Sun Q&A
John Stevens, Towson: I learned in [the] Boy Scouts how to make a tourniquet out of a belt or scarf and a stick. What's the difference between something like this and the $20 tourniquets? Won't both do the same thing?
Special Report
WASHINGTON - Faced with pressure from Congress, the Army has decided to quickly dispatch modern tourniquets to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and those soldiers set to deploy, more than two years after military doctors recommended that every soldier carry one.
Members of the U.S. Senate called on the Pentagon and Army officials yesterday to investigate why soldiers in Iraq continue to go into battle without the modern tourniquets that military leaders told them to carry two months ago - and that military surgeons and medical specialists have recommended for more than two years.
Even after the bullet cut through his leg and severed his femoral artery, 1st Lt. David R. Bernstein had a chance. The shooting stopped quickly, and a soldier trained in combat medical care was at Bernstein's side almost immediately. Helicopters landed, and minutes later the young platoon leader was surrounded by four surgeons and all the equipment of a modern battlefield trauma center.
