HIGH-3

Who’s the first to arrive — the fire department, EMS or you? My money’s on the patrol cop. Patrol is out there “amongst them” every hour of the day. My department provided the city’s ambulance service when I first started and trained us as EMT’s in the academy. My first cruiser was an ambulance-equipped Dodge van. You should’ve seen the faces of motorists from Los Angeles when we pulled them over on I-5 and issued them speeding tickets. “This ain’t fair” was the usual refrain. “Fair is where you go to get cotton candy — sign here,” was my usual retort. We rode 2-officer and responded to all the regular patrol calls just like the other cops until there was an ambulance call. Then it was code-3 off to the races.

Since we were always out there, our response time was one-third that of the paramedics who eventually replaced us. We could have the patient at the hospital in the hands of a real doctor before they could even get on scene.

What’s that have to do with high-tech? Not much, but it’s a way of introducing high-tech Chinook Medical Gear Kits for cops and reminding you that you just might be your partner’s, beat partners’ or your own only hope of surviving a catastrophic injury — gunshot, stabbing, auto accident or whatever.

HIGH-2

Two critical pieces for any medical kit: Celox gauze and a Halo Chest Seal.

Mission And Function Specific

Chinook Medical Gear has been providing custom medical solutions for the harshest environments on earth since 1992. They specialize in supporting government agencies, law enforcement, military units, private military contractors, outfitters and individuals with the latest medical technology. Whether you work in an urban environment or a rural area, two of the kits from Chinook are interesting and contain the newest tech available.

HIGH-1b

Although touted for tactical team members, the Individual Operator
Kit is well suited for any officer who wants more than just the basics.

Patrol Officer Kit

The full LEMK-PO kit in its bag weighs only 1 pound and is 6.5x5x3.5″. It contains pretty much everything necessary to administer life-saving first aid — enough to get you or another officer to the hospital and a real doctor quickly. The Patrol Officer Kit contains primed compressed gauze, a 4″ Israeli emergency bandage, a triangle bandage, 3×9″ petroleum gauze, 10 yards of 1″ cloth tape, ten 1×3″ sheer strips, 3.5-gram burn jel packet, large Nitrile gloves, a 1.5″ wide SOF tactical tourniquet and 5.5″ EMT shears. The only additions I’d make are a Celox gauze packet for heavy bleeding and a Halo Chest Seal for sucking chest wounds.

Individual Operator Med Kit

The LEMK-IO is a little more extensive than the Patrol Officer Kit. It contains four large OD Nitrile Gloves, a Halo Chest Seal, two pieces primed compressed gauze, a 4″ Olaes modular bandage, 1.5″ SOF tactical tourniquet, Naso Airway with lubricant, an oral airway, 3.5-gram burn jel packet, two 4×4″ gauze packs, 7.25″ EMT shears, 10 yards of 1″ cloth tape, a 14ga X 3.25″ decompression needle, triage card and a tactical combat casualty response card. In this case the only addition I’d make is a Celox gauze packet for heavy bleeding.

HIGH-4

Chinook Medical Gear’s Patrol Officer Kit is an excellent basic
kit for most injuries officers are likely to come across in the field.

Shrimp — Really?

As far as high-tech goes, Celox is one of the newest emergency hemostatic agents available. It’s designed to control moderate to severe traumatic bleeding. All the Celox products use the same core technology. It’s a propriety composition containing chitosan, a natural polymer extracted from shrimp shells and is highly purified. Don’t worry; there have been no known or suspected allergic reactions as a result of using Celox since its launch. It’s been tested extensively on people with confirmed shellfish allergies with no one showing any sensitivity.

Does it work? In Afghanistan there were 21 cases of Celox use studied. It was used to treat gunshot wounds including neck, shoulder and limb injuries. Bleeding was life threatening in 15 cases. Most of the limb injuries had a tourniquet applied, but bleeding continued. In every case Celox stopped the bleeding and in 18 cases it happened within 1 minute. The Navy performed tests of five hemostatic gauzes in severe arterial hemorrhage. In the test Celox gauze demonstrated higher rates of survival than any other agent. It could make the difference between life and death.
By Dave Douglas

For info: www.americancop.com/company/chinook-medical-gear

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