Hi everyone! Triggering topic but Pride Month is coming soon amid increasingly violent rhetoric around our community.
If you plan on going to any Pride events next month NOW is the time to order/buy supplies and put together an IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit).
You'll want a CAT tourniquet or two, clotting factor impregnated gauze (NOT clotting powder!), z folded gauze, and a couple vented chest seals. Maybe a pair of nurse's shears too, they're very cheap.
You want to purchase these things from North American Rescue. At least the tourniquets. Cheap alternative tourniquets have a high failure rate. Improvised tourniquets almost always fail. You want a CAT from North American Rescue so when it happens, where it happens, you have the best possible chance of your friend not bleeding out in your arms.
You'll want to take a Stop The Bleed class. You can do this online if none are available in person.
I'm a certified EMT and Stop The Bleed instructor. People do not survive hemorrhages long enough for people like me to get on scene, and police often prevent first responders from entering scenes. You are the only one coming to save your friends. You need to be ready to do that. Once the attacker is down - and it won't be the police who stop him - you need to act or if you can't you need to yell "I have an IFAK in my bag" so someone else can.
Another attack will come. It's only a matter of where and when. Buy the things, put them in a little pouch, and keep them with you at these events.
I don't care if you call me a hysterical doomer. Just get an IFAK and please bring it with you to Pride. Take a Stop The Bleed class. Please.
