In this very special episode of the Disaster Podcast we are joined by trauma surgeon, inventor and educator Dr. Dennis Filips to talk about common misconceptions in controlling severe bleeding. Dennis is the creator of the IT Clamp that is an amazing and simple tool to quickly control severe bleeding in most situations.

Hosts Jamie Davis, the Podmedic and Sam Bradley along with Dr. Joe Holley from Paragon Medical Education Group all sat down this week to chat with Dennis. Their goal was to ask questions and challenge preconceived notions about hemorrhage control.

What surprised both Jamie and Sam was that much of what they learned in paramedic and nursing school about controlling severe bleeding was incorrect or at least incomplete. The first question that came up was the notion that direct pressure is almost always incorrectly applied to a severely bleeding wound. The pressure must be applied with great force and targeted to the specific site of bleeding within a wound and not diffusely applied to the whole wound surface.

Make sure you check out next week’s second half segment on the Trouble with Tourniquets where the team asks Dennis about the challenges and incomplete training associated with applying tourniquets to limbs with severe bleeding.