SOF Critical Care Medical Tools

"Current commercial market offers many products that may form the basis from which to proceed, these devices were not designed with the original intent to perform in the austere environment of combat by minimally trained personnel where evacuation andaccess to higher echelons of medical care are likely to be significantly delayed. The overarching challenge will be to design robust light-weight and easy to use critical care medical tools which meet the unique needs of SOF warfighters. Proper design ofsuch devices should allow their application to known salvageable injury patterns with a minimum amount of failure. Successful design and creation of such devices will also provide advances in civilian emergency medical care. I - Development of a tourniquetthat:a) Can be carried by each warfighter as a standard issue item.b) Can be easily self-applied using one hand in the event of that one extremity is incapacitated or required for other immediate action.c) Can be easily self-adjusted in terms of placement and in applied circumferential pressure allowing the user to know the pressure applied at any given moment.d) Ability to determine the safe limits of application in terms of tourniquet pressure, time, and perhaps even determine systemic blood pressure.e) Ability to apply the tourniquet directly to the wound with ports in the device for delivery of hemostatic, anesthetic, and antimicrobial agents to the wound without removing the tourni