Elastic adhesive dressing treatment of bleeding wounds in trauma victims

Conventional methods for hemorrhage control in the trauma patient fall short of providing a full solution for the life-threatening bleeding injury. The tourniquet is limited specifically to injuries of the distal limbs. Local pressure or tight bandaging with military bandages is cumbersome and often insufficient. Therefore, we sought a superior method to stop bleeding in emergency situations. Our objective is report and description of our experience with this method. Since 1992 our trauma team repeatedly encountered multiple trauma victims presenting with bleeding wounds. We achieved hemorrhage control by means of an adhesive elastic bandage applied directly over a collection of 4 × 4 gauze pads placed on the wound surface. The roll is then wrapped around the body surface, over the bleeding site, until sufficient pressure is reached to terminate ongoing hemorrhage. Three typical cases are described in detail. Adhesive elastic dressing compression was successful in fully controlling bleeding without compromise of distal blood flow. Our method corresponded to the demand for an immediate, effective and lasting form of hemorrhage control without complications. Furthermore, this technique proved successful even over body surfaces normally recognized as difficult to compress. We experienced equal favorable success while working during transit by either ambulance or helicopter transportation. We find our preliminary experience using elastic adhesive dressing for bleeding control encouraging and suggest that this may substitute existing practices as the selected treatment when indicated. This method is presently underrecognized for this purpose. Development of a single unit bandage may further enhance success in the future. (Am J Emerg Med 2000;18:816-819.