Solidly in the "why the hell didn't I think of that?" category.
It just really caught my eye since I'm trying to figure out a good way to pack all the crap into this new fangled CLS bag the army issued me, including two pairs of those type of shears and a separate Benchmade safety knife. It would be pretty nice to just have one of those attached to the pair in the front tear-away pocket on the bag...
Posts
7 comments:
New CLS bag? What did the change?
Quite a bit. It's also the first Multicam item I've been issued... that's right, the bag's Multicam.
Interesting idea, but I don't see the use. If you've got the trauma shears in hand, you don't need a seatbelt cutter - the trauma shears will do a bang-up job on their own, just as quickly, just as safely, and just as easily.
The knives with a seat belt cutter built in are a better idea. You don't want to use the knife blade to cut the seat belt, because it could cut the patient, so it's not a redundant feature. The keychain ones are really good too.
It's not so much for seatbelts as is is for cutting clothes. Plus, if it's anything like the Gerber one I got with my LMF II (and it looks like it,) it uses standard #11 Exacto Knife blades, so it's much easier to keep sharp compared to the hook knife I was issued.
It's much faster to hook one of these under clothing and just pull than to cut with the scissors, sort of like a universal zipper...
Both medical personnel and CLS types tend to get in the habit of carrying all of their stuff in one bag. It's a bad habit to be in, in the heat of the moment you can be seperated from your bag. Maybe you had to abondon your vehicle, maybe you took it off to treat a casualty and then had to move, with no chance to retrieve it. There are a thousand different ways you and your gear could become seperated. Which is why things like pockets, drop leg bags, and butt packs become so important. I carried enough stuff physically on me to be able to treat several casualties, regardless of where my medbag was. Just something to think about.
The problem is that all the items in the CLS bag are, well, part of the CLS bag. I don't know when, at the drop of a hat, I'm going to have to turn in the bag, with all of it's stuff (Yay NG!) and it would be a nightmare if I had various bits of it spread out through all my other gear.
Add to that various times when it's required that the bag is at Range X, and I'm required at Range Z; and you start to see why it's not exactly a viable option.
Thankfully the individual first aid pouch we've got now has enough of the basics in it that you can deal with most stuff enough long enough to get better stuff. Seriously, I had a field dressing (I actually crammed a second one into my pouch) overseas, and that was it for personal first aid stuff. The new one has a tourniquet, Israeli bandage, a roll of gauze... and some other stuff. It's like half of an old CLS bag.
The ripshears attachment works great. I'm an 18Delta medic and have used them several times in the field. They cut clothes in a heartbeat and what is great is you can imediately switch from the hookknife to the shear when cutting someone out of body armor. I've even used the rounded edge to purcus the chest and drop a chest tube. I'll always cary a set, I'm a believer.
Post a Comment