Which Tourniquet Should You Carry?
If you’ve made the decision to carry a tourniquet in your EDC kit, you still have some choices to make. Do you want a CAT, SWAT-T, or SOF? Do you need one of each? Why are there so many options? Don’t they all do the same thing? Come to think of it, maybe you should just order five tourniquets on Amazon for the price of one name-brand TQ.
Choosing the right tourniquet can feel like a guessing game, but it’s really pretty straightforward once you know what you’re looking at. Today, we’ll break down three of the most popular tourniquets on the market, and discuss why you should never buy a knockoff.
Why Tourniquets?
Carrying a tourniquet with you on a daily basis is a smart choice. You never know when you could be the bystander to a major trauma. Every year in the United States, thousands of people die of massive hemorrhages that could have been stopped by someone with the right training and equipment.
In this article, we won’t cover the ins and outs of when and how to use a tourniquet, but if you need a refresher course, here’s a good one.
Before you go out and buy a tourniquet, start by thinking through how you’ll carry it on a daily basis. Having a tourniquet only does you any good if you are willing and able to take it with you wherever you go.
Some people carry a tourniquet inside of a med kit with other trauma and first-aid gear. This is a good option, as long as you’re committed to keeping the bag with you. Keep in mind that if a trauma occurs, you may not have time to run back to your vehicle to retrieve a med kit.
Other people opt for carrying a standalone tourniquet on their person. This can be a fine choice, but it depends on your apparel and comfort preferences. More on that later.
CAT GEN 7
The CAT Gen 7 from North American Rescue is probably the most iconic tourniquet on the market. When you think of a tourniquet, you probably think of this one. There’s good reason for that, since it’s the most widely-fielded tourniquet in combat theaters. The CAT tourniquet is carried by law enforcement agencies and the US military, so it is backed by loads of real-world use cases.
Aside from its pedigree, the biggest advantage to the CAT tourniquet is that it’s easy to quickly train on how to use it effectively. Success rates in one study for individuals who had received full training on the CAT were 87.7%.
According to the U.S. Army’s Institute of Surgical Research, the CAT has been proven to be 100% effective in occluding blood flow to the upper and lower extremities. The CAT is also a true one-handed tourniquet for self-application scenarios.
The CAT has a semi-rigid structure due to the hook and loop that lines the length of the tourniquet. When folded, the CAT keeps its shape and stays folded until deployed. The buckle and windlass rod are both made of reinforced plastic, which keeps weight down without sacrificing durability.
SOF Tourniquet Gen 5
Next on the list is the SOF Tourniquet, or “SOF T” by Tactical Med Solutions. While similar in overall design to the CAT, the SOF T deviates in a variety of interesting ways.
The most noticeable difference between the CAT and the SOF T is the material of the tourniquet itself. As opposed to the semi-rigid feel of the CAT, the SOF is made of a polyester webbing that is reminiscent of a seatbelt. The SOF is free of hook and loop, allowing the tourniquet body to glide smoothly through the buckle. It isn’t better or worse than the CAT, just different. For those who care, the SOF T is made in the USA.
Unlike the CAT, the SOF T features an aluminum windlass (rather than plastic), which SOF claims reduces the chances of failure.
The primary advantage to the SOF T is that it folds down thinner than the CAT tourniquet, making it ideal for carrying in a pocket. If you wear cargo or tactical pants on a daily basis, the SOF T is a great choice for carry as a standalone tourniquet without the need of a tourniquet case on your belt.
SWAT-T
According to some experts, like Matt Sena, an MD and former 18D Special Forces Medical Sergeant, “Several of the available windlass tourniquets are too large for effective pediatric application.”
Enter the SWAT-T, a tourniquet with a very different design from the traditional windlass tourniquet. With the SWAT-T, application is more like stretching a very wide rubber band around an arm or leg. Matt Sena goes on to explain that, “The wider profile of the SWAT-T decreases skin and soft tissue injury that can occur when using narrower, windlass tourniquets in geriatric and pediatric patients.”
Does this mean that a CAT or SOF tourniquet will not be effective on a child, or that it will cause damage? Not necessarily. However, if you have young children or are around children, such as in a school setting, having a SWAT-T tourniquet on hand might be a good call.
Kerry Davis of Dark Angel Medical cautioned me that the SWAT-T design is not as intuitive and foolproof as that of the CAT, which leads to lower real-world effectiveness, especially for untrained individuals. Indeed, studies have shown that successful application rates of the SWAT-T are much lower than of the CAT and SOF T.
If you choose to carry a SWAT-T as an option in your tool bag, just make sure you get training and know how to use it. It could potentially be considered a backup to a CAT or SOF T if those options fail to work effectively on a young child.
What About Knockoff Tourniquets?
We can’t end our discussion of tourniquets without talking about knockoffs. When you see the $35 price tags on those CAT and SOF tourniquets discussed above, you may be tempted to browse Amazon for alternatives. You’ll quickly come across listings for 8-packs of tourniquets for $35, and those tourniquets will look a lot like the CAT.
Would it really be so bad to save some money and buy the knockoffs? I’ll answer that question with another question: is your life, or the life of a loved one, worth more than $35 to you?
There is no way to prove that a knockoff tourniquet won’t work to stop a massive hemorrhage. There is also no real-world evidence to prove that it will. This is the problem with a knockoff tourniquet. Unlike the major name-brand tourniquets that have been tested extensively in real-world combat situations, knockoffs have no record of success or failure.
Just because it looks like a CAT doesn’t mean that it meets the same quality control standards, or that it’s been manufactured with the same thoughtful design based on generations of testing and improvement (recall that the CAT is on its 7th design iteration).
In short, if you decide that carrying a tourniquet is for you, buy yourself the real deal.
Parting Thoughts
It’s a no-brainer for any responsible citizen to carry a tourniquet on a daily basis. You truly never know when you could be a bystander to a car accident, violent encounter, or mass casualty event. If you work at a school, or serve on a church security team, you should absolutely carry a tourniquet. In fact, if you take the initiative of carrying a tourniquet as part of your EDC setup, why not carry two? As they say, two is one, and one is none. You may find yourself in a scenario where multiple individuals are injured with massive bleeding. It’s also possible that a single individual could have massive bleeding in not one, but two extremities.
If you have a family, consider carrying a tourniquet for each member of your family, including yourself. Compared to most other survival gear, high-quality tourniquets are a very cheap form of insurance that could save your life, or someone else’s life someday.
Most importantly, get training. Success rates for CAT tourniquet use by untrained individuals following manufacturer instructions have been as low as 53.7% in studies, compared to 87.7% for trained individuals.
