The Auto TQ: The Who, What, Where, and Why behind this new Public Access Tourniquet w/ Hannah Herbst

So why an automatic tourniquet?

yeah great question and i think the the thought of an automatic tourniquet goes back to sort of 2 000 years ago when the very first tourniquet was made um it was improvised and it was improvised by a professional the windlass tourniquet was made by professionals for professionals and they work very effectively in expert hands but in bystander hands they fail between 78 to 84 percent of the time immediately after training literature finds that over and over again And so I would never discount the efficacy of a one-list tourniquet.

They have saved countless lives.

But there hasn't really been a tourniquet made for a bystander that sort of walks them through the process, provides online training that anyone can access.

And so that's really where the seed was planted for it is how do we make a tourniquet like an AED? And that's what AutoTQ is.

Do you have the literature for the stat you just gave so we can share that? Because that's an interesting tourniquet.

What was the percentage you said that are inappropriately placed?

Between 78% and 84%.

And that's by bystanders?

That's by laypeople.

Laypeople? Okay, got it, got it.

And I guess misplacement would be either inappropriate placement when there wasn't a tourniquet needed or hemorrhage after placement, like active hemorrhage after placement, right?

Yes.

Each study is slightly different in what they evaluate, but I believe it is insufficient tightness and proper placement are the two metrics that define failure there.

Okay.

Any studies or anything you cite we'll have in our show notes just so our listeners can independently validate all the literature because I certainly haven't reviewed it.

I'm sure Dr. Loner reviewed it at some point forever ago.

So we do want our listeners to, you know, independently evaluate it.

So that's the, you know, it's interesting to me.

We have naloxone kits everywhere now, right? Which is great, right? We have ADs that are becoming more and more prevalent.

And it's interesting to me that now we could have a automated tourniquet that Because we've had this push, right? Our idea has been since, I believe, Sandy Hook, and I'm blanking on the initiative that President Obama made that we wanted to push Stop the Bleed out, right? And I don't think I'm hallucinating that, but I'm pretty sure that was a thing.

And then that led to a lot of this current push of Stop the Bleed stuff.

And the current paradigm is that we teach lay people how to use cat tourniquets, which is interesting.

You mentioned that those are meant for professionals.

So an automated tool could be interesting.