TN/GA/AL Tac Med Review

[A.J. Holst]

This was a great experience for me, with a guest instructor and low range valet duties, I was able to really participate

The first half of the class was basic first aid for beyond band aid injuries.

Not having any exposure to medical training since my son was in the scouts and helping the boys earn a their merit badge, I needed knowledge.

Jeff Bishop is a very good instructor and communicator; look forward to working with him in the future.

Drawing from his experience as an EMT, a deployed Marine, and currently Louisville Metro, he shares best practices for a civilian perspective

I learned how to properly apply a modern tourniquet to arms and legs and got to experience the pros and cons of the different types available.

Also have a basic understanding and confidence for patching and plugging holes and using different types of pressure bandages.

I'm more likely to roll up on a car wreck than a gunfight, so I have the beginnings of a new set of portable skills.

After lunch, we got on the range and shot the 5 Yard Round Up as a warm up and for self assessment.

We then moved to 2-man team drills with rifles.

This is always fun because I never get to do it and way out there on the fringes of possibilities, I rather know it than not.

Dry Work to ensure muzzle and trigger discipline and basic commands of move/moving/set cover/covering reload/reloading

Important to keep them simple, it's hard to hear during live fire exercises.

Interestingly, running my HK91 dry, I noticed the burdensome weight, with the live fire command of "fight" and a little adrenaline, I didn't seem to notice at all.

For Live fire, Randy and Jeff added a new level of difficulty:

Alternating between partners, Jeff would call, "Hit, left arm / right leg / etc" 

You would apply a tourniquet to your injured limb while your partner provided cover fire

Once applied, you got back in the fight.

Had an opportunity to switch to my pistol; ran dry on one run, I knew could get my pistol in the fight faster than a HK91 reload.

What I should have done was called "reloading" after my partner was done treating injuries and back in the fight.

Big shout out to my partner Chip, during my self-treatment, he moved his armored body into a position to cover me. 

Great weather, fantastic group of folks, valuable practical knowledge obtained, two talented instructors and whole lot of fun.