“Check the hands, check the hands, check the hands!” He recites a mantra we’ve been told endlessly, but that I’ve already forgotten. “Look in my eyes!” I stop what I’m doing and look up from my prone position beside the “patient.” “Look at me,” the instructor bellows through his loudspeaker. In Sensory Overload Lab, student places Combat Application Tourniquet on a leg to stop arterial bleeding. ![]() The instructor now correcting me in the Stress Lab has a background of 20 years in Special Forces and numerous combat deployments. His instructor cadre is largely ex-military, nearly all with Special Operations and extensive combat experience. His company, Rescue Training Inc., holds numerous courses annually for law enforcement as well as various armed services groups readying for deployment overseas, including the 10th Special Forces Group and 1/75th Ranger Battalion. When the Federal Counter Narcotics and Tactical Operational Medical Support (CONTOMS) Tactical Medic training program lost funding and came to a temporary halt, Dave Hall started an EMT-T program based on both CONTOMS and Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) standards to fill the gap. Drawn by RTI’s reputation, I am in Savannah, Georgia, in RTI’s EMT-T Class Number 33. After 12 years in both ground and air EMS, I was looking for something different. Welcome to the Sensory Overload Lab, Day Two, at Rescue Training Inc.’s (RTI) EMT-Tactical medic program. Members of EMT-T Class 33 practice officer extraction on second day of class. My 12 years of EMS experience have betrayed me, drawing me in the wrong direction. I’m less than 30 seconds into the training evolution and I’ve already screwed up. “TACTICAL,” he yells even more loudly, “TACTICAL MEDIC!” Suddenly it dawns on me. “What are you doing?” I’ve got the tourniquet over the patient’s leg and begin to draw traction. “You’re a TACTICAL MEDIC,” he yells, drawing closer. I continue trying to apply the tourniquet. Through the smoke and strobe lights I can see the larger-than-life form of our lead instructor, yelling at me through the boom mike hanging off his right ear. ![]() “What are you doing?” A voice booms from my left. ![]() I’m a highly trained professional-I can fix this. I clamp one gloved hand over the site, pulling a Combat Application Tourniquet out of my vest with the other. “Arterial bleed” flashes through my head. The man remains motionless, and as I approach from the direction of his feet, fluid strikes me in the face. I struggle across the muddy floor toward the still form I can see through the smoke and flashing light. “They’re shooting through here!” an operator yells. As I step through the doorway, a hand seizes the back of my collar, thrusting me to the floor. I hurry through a smoky room, headed in the direction from which the call came. “Medic Up!” The dreaded call comes over the sound of explosions and gunfire. Student applies tourniquet to wounded civilian’s leg during final exercise.
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