Lessons from the battlefield

First class care

A solider injured in Afghanistan or Iraq will get treatment that a pedestrian knocked down by a car on a high street in the United Kingdom could only dream of. To start with, he will be surrounded by soldiers who are trained and tested in first aid annually—a quarter of whom will have advanced first aid training and carry extra equipment including a HemCon bandage made of a positively charged material that attracts negatively charged red blood cells and rapidly stops blood flow, a tourniquet that can be applied with one hand, and a suction device for clearing the airway. This first aid kit shows how the military has changed the model of treatment of severely injured patients from airway, breathing, and circulation to chronic haemorrhage, airway, breathing, and circulation. Care is embedded at the point of wounding, says Colonel Hodgetts.

The soldier will then be picked up by a helicopter carrying a crew of emergency medics, one of whom will either be a consultant anaesthetist or a consultant emergency specialist. “We are …