Rigid eye shields: a critical gap in the individual first aid kit.

From 5% to 22% of all U.S. Department of Defense combat casualties between 2001 and 2010 suffered some form of ocular trauma.

The Tactical Combat Casualty Care Casualty Card TCCC Guidelines ? Proposed Change 1301.

Optimizing trauma care delivery is paramount to saving lives on the battlefield. During the past decade of conflict, trauma care performance improvement at combat support hospitals and forward surgical teams in Afghanistan and Iraq has increased through Joint Trauma System and DoD Trauma Registry data collection, analysis, and rapid evidence-based adjustments to clinical practice guidelines. Although casualties have benefitted greatly from a trauma system and registry that improves hospital care, still lacking is a comprehensive and integrated system for data collection and analysis to improve performance at the prehospital level of care.

Analysis of recovered tourniquets from casualties of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation New Dawn.

Background: Tourniquet use recently became common in war, but knowledge gaps remain regarding analysis of recovered devices. The purpose of this study was to analyze tourniquets to identify opportunities for improved training.

Methods: We analyzed tourniquets recovered from deceased service members serving in support of recent combat operations by a team at Dover Air Force Base from 2010 to 2012.