Tourn-iquet of the Century, by GuerrillaLogistician

Ref – 17D

@glogistician on X.com

The buzzing sound of bullets coming by made the small ambush team try to bury themselves even deeper into their hasty cover. The return fire from the machine guns was very unnerving as the ambush team didn’t have that kind of firepower and had to rely on their position and will to press the attack. If they let up on the enemy, everyone knew things wouldn’t go well for them. As the zips and cracks and hammering booms of two machine guns came at them, it was difficult not to dig a hole and hide until the shooting stopped. “Keep on them!” Bryan screamed as a round hit with that unmistakable meat-smacking sound to his right. The howls of one of his men pierced through the roar of gunfire, and the screams of the other ambushed. “Keep on the enemy!” he yelled out as he pulled the trigger at a foot sticking out behind a large rock, “Don’t let up!”

He hoped this would keep them in place instead of helping whoever was shot. He knew one of his friends was screaming and cursing in pain, but the fight had to be finished, or they would all be dead even though they had the high ground. Losing another shooter to help a friend might give the enemy enough break to start maneuvering between the rockpiles and cedar down below in the valley, and Bryan couldn’t have that. The short leg of the L-shaped ambush was removing the threat, but they didn’t have the best vantage point. With a bit of forethought, observation, and digital comms using cheap radios and tablets, he and his men turned the valley into a coffin, but at what cost? The enemy had forces, and Bryan had a very dedicated but small group of men. The shots rattled, and while his mind raced, he could hear the groaning and curses coming from his left, which made the time drag out like a tired mule carrying a massive load.

Holding back his rage, he controlled his anger and fear, focusing on his men engaged with the enemy until the last few hostiles were finally silenced. “Merrill, go help who is hit; everyone else push through,” he said to his fire team. Bryan keyed up his radio, “Stone 1, Stone 2, shift fire, shift fire.” His team got up and readied themselves for the move toward the enemy, knowing they only had minutes to complete their task. The radio crackled an affirmative, and Bryan waved his men forward as Merrill and his medical bag rushed to the injured.

Merrill moved up to Ephram, whose right arm was covered in blood. Diving behind the little cover at Ephram’s position, Merrill started doing a full body check, running his hands up and down Ephram’s body, “Are you hit any place else?”

“No, just the arm,” Ephram said, groaning a bit as the Tourniquet glowed softly with the chemical green everyone in the conflict was so used to. “If I end up in a sling like my brother, I swear I will never hear the end of this,” he added.

Checking the tightness of the tourniquet, Merrill got to work, cutting away the sleeve and pulling out what he thought he would need. “Looks like you might not hear the end of it, but you didn’t lose a lot of blood.”, he said as he went to work cleaning and inspecting the area. “I will have Bryan get our evacuation going, and we will have you to the vet in no time,” Merrill commented in passing as he checked the entry and exit wound, cleaned it up, and grabbed a compression bandage. “Sorry, this is going to hurt,” he warned as he cleaned the wound and applied the bandage tightly, causing Ephram to grit his teeth and groan in pain.

Various TQs next to the ETQ

My medical knowledge is shit; I want you to know this before you go into this as an endorsement of any product. With that said and knowing this, I hope to have Teddy on X, Mech Medic, and Liquored Rabbit to do an actual review of this product. I am also going to add I fucking love CAT tourniquets and recommend them as the go-to until these guys say otherwise. However, my ass ended up in Utah at Shootah, and I came across a product from www.snakestaffsystems.com and Jake. I will say that with all the knock-off TQs on the market, I was highly suspect, but I think these things are worth a look at.

The biggest thing I do with TQs is stuffing them in cars, gear, etc, but I rarely take them with me on a belt, and let’s face it, most of us don’t. This is not because we are stupid, but it’s the same reason we don’t carry many other items because of a lack of space in pockets, convenience, etc. They had a special deal at the event, and I bought 2 for 50 bucks. After listening to Jake’s explanation of the design, construction, and how they worked, I thought these were brilliant medical products everyone who loves guns should investigate. These Everyday tourniquets are 65% smaller than your average TQ on the market. The size almost made me hesitate because I thought something that small would be cheap, but they seem well constructed.

Not only that, but they come under the cost of your CAT TQs, which is a nice plus. More to the point, these are said to be as effective in stopping the bleeding, and I can even pocket the damn thing and almost forget it’s in with me. As usual, I am sitting in a coffee shop writing this with a spare mag, this TQ, wallet, keys, etc in my pocket, and I don’t look like a chipmunk pocket hoarder. Add to that the ETQ fits in a pistol mag pouch no problem, unlike normal CAT TQ.

Poly Gauze and mag for size comparison of the Everyday TQ and Wide TQ, next to a CAT on the right.

This quick article aims to get your eyeballs on a new product, and no, I can’t rightfully say, “Grab 10; they are amazing.” I want to say that I like this product, but I am not the best person to review it. That said, I want medical professionals and avid shooters to really look at these, as they are already being sold in ranges. I even found one at Red River Firearms in Louisiana for around 31$. I do like these a lot and have gone to carrying them instead of having a CAT TQ nearby, and I think many of you will be doing the same in the future. I will be handing at least one of these off to a police officer in Miami for testing as well. I figure my opinion shouldn’t hold much weight because I don’t know much about tourniquets other than how to use them.

You may not know how to use a tourniquet, which is interesting because this company has a little QR code on their medical equipment that shows you a video on how to use it. I recommend you watch it before you need to use something and practice with this stuff to understand it. Still, I appreciate them putting some effort into these products for the typical shooter. This tourniquet was not designed for combat field use, although it can serve that feature. They make these for us average guys walking around with guns and going to the range regularly, who know stopping the bleeding is very important.

They also have a larger version for the field, although it is still more compact than your CAT TQ. They even thought about handing off the injured patient by putting a little chem light inside the tourniquet. Each chem light is replaceable in case you broke one by accident, which I did, and the thing lasted all night. The glow helps identify where the tourniquet is because they are built in a black color pattern, so if you’re out at night, they’re a little harder to identify on an injured person than one of the safety orange or blue TQs. I’m not opposed to colored cat TQs. It is a great idea to have them so visible, especially for medical professionals, but those in combat situations probably do not want the bright colors. I don’t want some massive orange thing in my pocket, much less in my gear. So, using the chem light is an excellent feature, although these can be pulled out if you don’t want them on.

Snakestaff TQ with QR code, and a holder they sell

One of this tourniquet’s beneficial designs and drawbacks is the windless. It is shorter than your CAT and SOF TT tourniquets. This makes getting torque onto the tourniquet a little harder, but I didn’t find it that difficult overall. The upside is the latching mechanism, a spring-loaded catch that is easy to do one-handed without fumbling around for the Velcro enclosure that you do on the CAT tourniquet. Again, this is not a slap against CAT. This may be an evolution we see in many more tourniquets as they have become the most prevalent medical equipment that shooters and prior military have on hand. Overall, I don’t think the length of the windless is a detriment. In addition, the spring-loaded catch makes it fairly easy to lock in place. Beyond the minor but noticeable changes, these TQs are operated just like a CAT, making it a reasonably simple transition.

As a side note, I also want to bring up something I did not see personally, and you may want to look into yourself. They also have a few everyday carry wound kits available. These can come with or without quick clot or packing gauze and a SOLO-T pressure bandage. They made these much smaller than most other IFAKs you would think of while retaining North American Rescue products, which we all know are good to go. While I think they dropped some of the stuff you may want in combat, this is a good kit for self-care or helping someone else. It’s the perfect idea for some of your cargo pocket-wearing guys, but it is so much smaller than your normal IFAK you could put it in your back pocket.

None of the items in the kit are that hard to understand or use, but the company also has a video for this kit. Mind you, you need to know where you should use the quick clot versus the packing gauze, but I think that chess seal is one of the best items in the kit and is left out in most people’s carry. Again, I might be wrong on this. I will let the more competent people who know more about this write a responsible article on what they think about the tourniquet and maybe even discuss the options in this everyday carry wound kit.

For those interested in knowing more, check out their site and videos. They are way better at selling this than I am, and I think they are worth the look. I would recommend you buy the bundle.
www.snakestaffsystems.com

ETQ – https://www.snakestaffsystems.com/buy-now/etq-every-day-tourniquet
WTQ – https://www.snakestaffsystems.com/buy-now/etq-wide
IFAK ETQ bundle – https://www.snakestaffsystems.com/buy-now/ifak-tq-bundle