By Carolyn Stein
Naperville Sun
NAPERVILLE, Ill. — The Naperville Fire Department has added a new emergency medical device to its toolbox — one used to treat injuries and save lives in military settings.
A SAM junctional tourniquet, which controls hemorrhages in places like the groin and armpit, is now available to emergency crews to stop severe bleeding and to act as a binder for fractures in the pelvic area.
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Naperville is the first to incorporate the tourniquet into its services within the Edward Hospital EMS system, which also includes the Lisle, Woodridge, Darrien, Bolingbrook, Warrenville and Romeoville fire departments.
The tourniquet were introduced for us in military combat settings about a decade ago. A WIRED magazine article published in 2014 noted that it saved its first life a month after it became available.
“We’re an extremely progressive fire department,” said Bill Croft, division chief of health services. Naperville, for example, was the first in the area in 2019 to treat cardiac arrests by using mechanical CPR, impedance threshold devices and capnography, he said.
The results were immediate and remarkable, he said. The department saw its neurologically intact survival rate “double and triple at times during the year,” which Croft said is “unheard of nationally.” Typically, the survival rate is only about 9% nationally, but the Naperville Fire Department finds itself hovering “anywhere between 15 and 20%” thanks to its innovative techniques and devices, he said.
“We’re very proud of being progressive,” Croft said. “Finding the right tools to help serve our community, that is most important.”
The department started looking into using the tourniquets about three months ago, he said.
“We have to have our ambulances inspected every year through (the Illinois Department of Public Health ) and basically we were using a bed sheet to stabilize a pelvic fracture,” Croft said.
The use of sheets is a fairly common emergency technique in such situations, Croft said, but “I was like, ‘Oh, there’s got to be a better way of doing that.’ It just seems so antiquated to use a bed sheet and tie it around someone’s pelvis to secure the fracture.”
After doing some research, they learned about the SAM junctional tourniquet and decided it could be effective. They’ve trained nearly 200 Naperville firefighter paramedics on how to use them to stop bleeding so far, Croft said.
“How it works (is) it has an inflatable bladder that applies direct pressure over that vascular structure, the artery. You pump it up and it’s secured around the patient where a tourniquet wouldn’t work,” Croft said.
The device is meant to be rapidly deployed because “seconds count when you’re losing a lot of blood,” he said. It can be deployed in less than 25 seconds, according to the WIRED article.
Another benefit is its ability to stabilize pelvic fractures while reducing pain and not causing further damage to the pelvic area.
“It wraps around the pelvis, and it has a tightening strap, or latch, that helps secure that pelvis in place, so we can transport them to the hospital and (get the patient) surgical intervention or whatever they need, so it’s a great tool,” Croft said.
While the department has yet to use the device in an emergency, he’s happy to have it available to fill what he saw as a gap in the fire department’s medical emergency services, he said.
“That’s our job is to find ways to help people when they are in in dire need of help, and if we can constantly be looking at new technology, new equipment, new protocols, that’s what we’re going to continue to do,” Croft said.
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