Ep. 138: Backcountry Safety with Jimmy Kits

This week's guest, Jimmy Gruenwald, aka Jimmy Kits, talks about getting the right items in your backpack's first aid kit. We talk tourniquets, quick clot, and more. Don't skip this episode - your life may depend on it!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
All right, welcome back to another episode of Cutting the
Distance podcast. I'm Dirk Durham and this week's episode is
about back country safety. I met my guest a few
years ago at Elk Shape camp and I was completely
blown away by all the information that he presented to
all the campers. And I'm just gonna I'm just gonna

(00:34):
introduce him right now. His name's Jimmy Grunwald aka Jimmy Kits.
Did I say your last name right?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
No, you got it? It was spot on, spot on.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Awesome. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Thank you very much for having me, Derek. I appreciate
it's great seeing you.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah. Yeah, it's been a while since we talked. Now.
Last time I think we were talking, you were coming
to Idaho Elk hunning. That was a couple of years ago.
How'd that go? Did you end up making it out?
And did you guys do any good?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
So it was a very humbling experience anytime hunting in Idaho.
It was some pretty steep country. We were My friend
that I went out there with was able to harvest
a pretty nice mule deer, but I was unsuccessful in
the in the Elk endeavor. But anytime that I can
get out elk hunting is it's always a win.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, man, I felt that last year a lot too.
My archery elk season was it was tough. I didn't
even draw my bow back once. I was hunting with
a couple buddies and I was really wanting them to
get a tag so or excuse me to get an elk.
So I would try to put them up front as
much as I could, But none of us got an elk.
Those guys got close a couple of times, but I

(01:52):
did get super close once, but I never did I
had a little tension on the stream, but I never
did pull it back because yeah, just never never came
to fruition. But you know, I don't I don't care
who you are. Eventually, you know, you just get you
know you're gonna get skunked. And and I've always said,
you know, about time I think I know anything about
elk hunting, then elk always remind me that I'm still

(02:16):
that I'm still learning.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, exactly exactly. I was able to past year. I
was able to go down to Colorado and uh hunt
with my good friend of mine, Mitch Vatsquads, and was
able to get I had the ball back and I
was at full drop for about two minutes. Oh and

(02:39):
it's just all I needed to do was just step
out and it just never happened, but it was. It
was a great experience.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Oh yeah, man, when it's that close, it's like, okay,
loud enough, is you going to step out? Oh man,
that's that's tough. I've been there.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
So are you gonna make it out this fall out West?

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Huh?

Speaker 2 (03:03):
So'm I'm waiting for the draw results for Colorado to
uh to come out here. It shouldn't be pretty. I'm
hoping pretty soon, So I put in for that. They
have that new the new non resident tag allocation system,
So if that doesn't work, yeah, then I'll I'll wait
and see what happens again next year and probably just

(03:23):
put all my efforts here back home in Wisconsin. But
I purchased a preference point for both Montana and Wyoming,
so I'm slowly accumulating those those points.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah. Yeah. Montana, their system is like really confusing to me.
I'll have somebody that knows how it works and they'll
kind of explain it to me, and it's like somebody
trying to explain nuclear physics. My poor little brain just
it doesn't oh yeah, soak. And I'm like, okay, now,
if you have one point, you could draw, but if

(03:58):
you have three points, you probably won't draw. And I
mean there's just like this crazy like who who in
Montana thought this stuff up?

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Right?

Speaker 1 (04:07):
I don't know, but it's it is complicated. So I
just I apply and they they don't like me. Last
two years, they they've sent my money back except for
the application fee. But you know that's how it goes.
I mean, you can't win if you don't play right.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah. So before we dive into backcountry safety, I kind
of wanted to have you talk about your background. What
got you in to like, uh, working on people, being
a medic and that kind of stuff. Where did you
get all your training and your information that can you?
Can you talk about your backstory?

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah? Yeah, absolutely? So you know, I grew up here
in h just north of Green Bay, Wisconsin, born and
raised and joined the Army coming out of high school.
And I was went through college in Stevens Point, which
is a small school in the northwoods of Wisconsin, and
was actually going to be studying to be a was

(05:11):
going into the medical field and was doing ROTC and
was able to do some training with Special Operations US
Army Operations Forces while I was while I was in college,
and that really got me hooked onto the operational side
of medicine and was able to once I commissioned as

(05:33):
a lieutenant, I actually got selected to go through the
US Army's Position Assistant program down at Fort sam Houston
down in San Antonio, Texas. And so I went down
there and I did my classroom portion and then I
did my clinicals at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which is

(05:54):
the home of the eighty second Airborne And as soon
as I finished with my clinicals, I was assigned to
the eighty second with a five away parachute Infantry Regiment
and deployed Afghanistan shortly after graduating. And it was a
phenomenal experience. I had a great group of individuals that

(06:15):
I was deployed with and was got a lot of
hands on, you know, trauma and battlefield medicine experience. And
that deployment was a lot of times where we would
be out for several days at a time, basically doing
longer patrols where I would have to carry you know,

(06:38):
my equipment that I would need my food, water, ammunition
to sustain myself for the next you know, three to
four days or however long the patrol was going to be.
But I also had to make sure that I had
all my medical lives with me on top of that.
And it really got me thinking on the types of

(07:00):
medical items I brought with me, because you know, ounce
his equal pounds and when you're wearing body armor, full
combat load of equipment and with a rucksack and then
carrying an aid bag on top of that, stuff can
get pretty heavy pretty quickly. So I needed to make
sure the stuff I had was you know, able to

(07:22):
save lives and sat multi a multitude of purposes.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Oh yeah, man, I bet you saw some crazy stuff.
Probably had to provide some life saving majors a lot
in that in that time.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Oh yeah, absolutely. And really, you know this is this
is the credit to the Armies training methodology where they
really the Army really started prioritizing medical training when it
came through like these initial life saving steps of controlling
traumatic bleedings from whether that's from gunshot wounds or improvise

(08:01):
explosive devices. So we saw a lot of traumatic amputations
of multiple extremities and getting you know, bleeding control was
you know, essential to happening that, you know, preventing death
on the battlefield. And we've seen that transition over to
the to the civilian sector where you're seeing things like

(08:23):
tourniquet use you know, much more common than it used
to be. Let's see, you know, say five ten years ago,
where if somebody put a tourniquet on, that was almost
a you know that was you just didn't hear that
and it was just you know, it just wasn't commonplace
as it as it is nowadays.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, I remember that from from uh the class at
elk Shape You're talking about tourniquet and that that raised
a lot of eyebrows, you know, amongst the people there,
because you hear a lot of people say, oh, yeah,
like a tourniquet, that's like the last thing you want
to do, Like if somebody's gonna die yet, put it on.
But but if it's just like maybe you could go

(09:05):
either way, don't do it, like it seems like you
have real real world experience and you know training that
kind of definitely says use a tourniquet, right.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, and a lot of it too. Comes down to
the type of injury that they that they have. So
it's like if you suspect that you have like bright
red bleeding where it's you know, like it's you can
see it almost like like with each heartbeat, you can
see it, you know, coming out of an extremity wound.
You know, in the back country for instance, You're you're
probably not gonna you know, encounter in many improvised explosive devices,

(09:44):
but you know, gunshot wounds. These broadheads nowadays are extremely sharp.
Everybody's got those, you know, these these disposable blade knives,
which is like complete job security for me. We see it.
We see a ton of those injuries quite a bit,
and you can get some arterial bleeds, some life threatening

(10:05):
bleeds from from these devices that if you don't have
good you know, pressure control, it can be you know,
you can bleed out very quickly. I mean you can
lose consciousness you know, within thirty seconds to one minute,
and you know, completely bleed out within within two to
three minutes if it's not well controlled.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
Wow, that's crazy. So what are you what are you
doing now for your day job?

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, So for my day job right now, I'm actually
working full time as a physician assistant in a primary
care clinic with the with the VA Clinic, the Beticane's
Affairs Clinic here in Wisconsin, which I absolutely love. I
also work I still pull shifts in the emergency department too.

(10:54):
When I transmissed off active duty in twenty eighteen, I
started working went straight to working in UH the emergency
room setting, particularly at our two trauma facilities here in
Green Bay, and then also up at what we call
critical access hospitals. So these are hospitals in rural areas

(11:15):
that you know, don't have all the you know, the
specialists there in house, so you know, they don't have
a surgeon that's there on call. You're you're it. So
you would be managing an airway, you'd be managing a ventilator,
any sort of traumatic injuries that come in. You know,
you're sitting. You're basically the first, first and last line

(11:36):
of defense until they can, uh, until they can get
get to a higher level of care. Which I thoroughly
enjoyed that it was. It was great, Uh, it was.
It was a phenomenal opportunity and I learned so much
there and it was really an extension of what I
did in the military being my own you know, being

(11:56):
basically your own uh you know, you're kind of your
your own self sustaining entity. So I really enjoyed that.
But the opportunity to go you know, work at work
at the VA, it was something I just couldn't pass up.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Oh yeah, yeah. So then on the side you do
to teach education on is it just is it medical stuff?
Is it like break that down for us?

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, So, you know, fast forward a little or rewind,
I guess would be. You know, when I when I
transitioned off active duty back in twenty eighteen, I you know,
we moved back up to Wisconsin and I got back
into you know, I was trying to really find my
tribe again. I didn't you know, going from uh where
I was stationed down in you're for Campbell, Kentucky, and

(12:48):
I moved up to uh, you know, Wisconsin back home,
there's not a lot of military folks around here, and
you know, at that point, you know, all my we
had family in the area, which was which was phenomenal.
It was a life saver for us. But at the
same time, I didn't have that tribe that I was
used to having, so I was felt pretty lost in

(13:11):
my wife at the time, I suggested that get back
into hunting. So I started getting back into hunting and
I really enjoyed it. And you know, funny story, when
I was deployed at the time, my last deployment with
Special Operations, my wife had said, Hey, I started watching
this show meat Eater and on Netflix that I found

(13:34):
and she's like, the you know, the guy that that
is producing this show is from Michigan. And I was like, oh,
I'd never heard it at the time, you know, I
hadn't heard of it. And I started getting into Meat
Eater and that got me back into, uh, really into hunting.
And I was watching that show and I really I

(13:55):
learned a lot. And one of the things that I
found is I was getting back into hunting again, was like, Okay,
I was looking at some just looking at what they
had out there for first aid kits, and I didn't
really like what I saw. It wasn't that there were
bad things out there. It just had good things and
things that I liked about this specific kit, but then
there were things in there that I didn't feel were necessary.

(14:18):
You know. It feels like anytime that you go and
buy one of these aid kits. You have like, you know,
a thousand band aids and these little like uh like
like anitopical antibiotic ointments and a couple, you know, pieces
of gauze and that's that's really about tape. Yeah, and
a bunch of tape that sticks to everything but what

(14:39):
you wanted to stick to. So you know, I started
to combine some of the items, particularly bandages, tourniquits, and
splints into and kind of made my own kit. Uh.
And one of the other pieces that I saw was
it was it wasn't just a lack of equipment out there,

(15:03):
but it was really like I saw that there was
really not a lot of education out there what really
should be taught at for you know, back country, like
what type of first aid should be taught in the
in the back country. A prime example I found out
here in my home state of Wisconsin is they're no
longer teaching first aid as part of hunter safety, oh wow,

(15:26):
which I was very surprised at because you know, we
were beaten in Wisconsin. We're we have a pretty big,
like annual gun hunting and season here in Wisconsin, and
you know we have and you can use rifles pretty
much throughout the state for deer hunting. So there's you know,

(15:48):
there's a high chance of every year, you know, we
have gun gun shot injuries due to hunting accidents. That
I feel like having that knowledge in the back country,
knowing how to treat just basic life saving maneuvers is
really essential and should be a component, you know, of
of any type of outdoor safety.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
Oh. Absolutely, So then you're you've started, like, not only
have you built kits, but then you've you've really kind
of focused on on that educational part of safety. Do
you do like these uh do you like training seminars locally?
Do you travel for those things?

Speaker 2 (16:27):
We? Yeah, we do, we do. UH. So there's a
I've portnered with or I work with a profect group
that uh for it called Heroes Harvest. That is a
veteran group that talks about that that brings folks up.
They have a turkey hunting camp up in northern Michigan

(16:48):
uh every year, and I go and I help out
with that, teaching uh that country safety and what to
look for when it comes to uh when it comes
to hunter safety and particularly with turkey hunting. You know,
that's one of the more you know, high probability chances
of because you know you're calling much like without hunting,

(17:11):
but you have a lot more hunters out there in
the woods and being able to like, hey, if not
just if you have a gunshot wound, but also to like, hey,
if you sprat your ankle, if you have a if
you you sustain puncture injury. What are some basic things
you can do? So I show people different items that

(17:32):
are out there. Basically what we do is we start
from a uh kind of a top down approach of
like what's the most life threatening condition to like being
able to treat traumatic hemorrhage, so uncontrolled bleeding, basic use
of the tourniquet, when and how to place the tourniquet.
And we also have different turniquets out there. You know,

(17:54):
I'm a firm believer in the best tourniquet that you
have that is out there is the one you have
and the one you know how to use. Sure, and
a lot of this stuff is it's expensive, and so
people have it and they're like, well, I don't want
to I don't want to lose this or I don't
want to use it for these minor injuries, so I'm
just going to keep it you know, in my truck,

(18:14):
in my vehicle or in my house. But it's like
that's not really where you need it. You need to
be carrying it with you. And that's what that's what
we teach is you know where to basically keep your
kits and how to employ each uh, each faction of
the like putting a tourniquet on, putting a bandage on,
how to do proper splinting, and then also to just

(18:36):
thinking about your medical planning, just even just going through
the scenario. So if we're if we're going to a
new area, or we'll have individuals that are, hey, I'm
going to a location in Colorado, we'll provide them with
a medical plan that basically these are your nearest hospitals
because a lot of folks see that they use their

(18:57):
garment in they say, hey, I got a garment in
reach or you know, I have you know, a satellite
phone and I just hit SOS and it's like, well,
the skis are just going to part in. A helicopter
is going to hear. That's not it's not how that works. Now.
Sometimes it can be you know, hours and you know
for somebody to be able to get to you. So

(19:18):
what is your plan you know, to you know, to
get that. So then it's just one. Do you have
medications on hand? You know, if you're like me, We're
we're three hundred and eighty seven feet above sea level
here in Wisconsin. So when I go out to Colorado
or even you know, I know, I'm very susceptible to

(19:39):
high altitude, so I feel that, you know, starting at
six thousand feet, I'm I'm you know, bringing bringing any
sort of you know, like high altitude medications to take,
or are you planning on getting there early and you
can acclimate to that high altitude versus just showing up
on day once up in your pack on and going

(20:01):
then hitting them out. And what he did both times
in Idaho and sh it was Yeah, it definitely was
a roode awakening each time.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Oh yeah, that's you know. I live at about three
thousand some odd feet and I haven't had altitude sickness yet,
you know, hunting it like nine or ten thousand feet,
but I can tell it. I can tell you right now.
It just takes the wind out of your sails, you know,
as far as breathing and ability to hike and everything else.

(20:32):
But the whole altitude sickness. What can people do to
like remedy that. Let's say they show up on their hunt,
they hunt for a couple of days and just got
get slammed by it. What's what's their best course of action?

Speaker 2 (20:47):
So really the best thing, and I know this is
super cliche for anybody that's in the military that's listening
out here, but staying hydrated is key. Like hydration is
a you can opponent with altitude sickness because a lot
of times you're already going to be it's going to
be a dry environment or even you know might be

(21:08):
depending on the time a year. But if you're dehydrated,
it's going to just perpetuate the symptoms of you know, headaches,
feeling nauseous, and you just don't realize how much you're
exerting yourself, particularly at altitude, so your body's going to
dehydrate so much quicker. You know, having tile and al
and ibuprofen is great for those headaches. Usually if you're

(21:32):
at usually between six to eight thousand feet is when
you can start to really start to see symptoms. The
more concerning symptoms or people will have you'll hear about,
you know, pulmonary edema, so you get fluid in your
lungs or swelling of your brain, which is called high
altitude cerebral edema. Usually that's not present for at least

(21:54):
it usually takes about three to four eighth and that's
usually at higher elevations where you get around you know,
we're above ten thousand feet for a prolonged period of time.
There are medications you can take from like the way
you can get prescribed from your physician or you know,
or your doctor where they can help with. A seat

(22:16):
of zolamide is one that basically allows you to breathe,
but it basically puts you in a state of restipory
alkalosis where you can breathe. Fact and it can sometimes
help with eplimization to higher altitudes, and you can you
can take that just you know, maybe one of two

(22:36):
days prior to getting at altitude. Most folks will probably
do very will do well just with hydration and just
bringing tail and on ibuprofen with them. But that's that's
one that we can use that you can use intermittently.
The a seat of zolamide for for acclimization to higher altitudes.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
Okay, yeah, that's good to know. You know, you just
don't hear all these things. You hear like oh yes, dehydrated, YadA, YadA, YadA.
But like some of these other, you know, medications, like
you could talk to your doctor about before you go
and if you're concerned about it. So and then is
there any like pre precursors like how how would you know?
Like if you've never been out west hunting and you're like, ah,

(23:22):
I think I'll be good, or you just don't know,
like until you get there, you don't know what you
don't know? Right, is there any precursors to be like,
you know, I should probably maybe go get that that prescription?
What is there anything that you could could say that
that might kind of be a giveaway that that you

(23:43):
may succumb to altitude sickness?

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, so if you have a you know, one of
the bigger ones too is if if you're a prior,
if you have a prior history like heye having altitude sickness,
but if you know that's that usually puts you at
an increased risk for having it again. But like me,
if if you've never or if you've never been in
a mountainous environment or you know, at higher altitudes, you're

(24:06):
probably not going to know. You know, physical fitness is
a big is a big component of that as well.
So but the problem is you can be I've seen
extremely physically fit people still get altitude thickness. And uh.
The other thing too, is is if you have medications,

(24:27):
Like certain medications can put you at increased risks. So
if you're on blood pressure medication, that can put you
at increased risk for you know, feeling the effects of
altitude easier. So that would be something to that I'd
probably want to talk to my you know, doctor about
like a you know, if you're if you're going out
west and then too knowing what altitudes you're going to

(24:49):
be at, if you're going to be at an area
of like, hey, we're hunting at an altitude of at
least you know, eight thousand feet, We're going to be
up there for a few few days, and would probably
you know, I'm talking about healthcare professional and say, hey,
you know, would you recommend having a prophylactic medication to
help me acclimized to altitude? And because there's there's indications

(25:12):
and like if you have certain drug allergies, particularly to
SOLFA drugs, you know, you should probably not take a
seat of zolamide. And there's there's other agents out there
that they can help that they can prescribe for you
for that to help help with acclimization.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
Now, you talked earlier about having a first aid kit
and it doesn't do any good in the truck. And
also I remember in your your clinic you put on
an elk shaped camp about how where you have it
located in your pack? Where should where's the best place
to have your your your first aid kit in your pack?

Speaker 2 (26:02):
So I'm a huge proponent of having it easily accessible,
So whether that's in the top lid of your pack
or if I actually break mine apart and I have
a turn a dead and a bandage actually in my
bino harness with me. Because if you're doing any sort
of spot in stock sometimes you'll set your pack down

(26:24):
and you might be on that on that final approach, Well,
that might be the time that's probably the most dangerous
because you're so locked into that animal. You might miss
that you know, you might miss that log, or you know,
something happens in the next and you know you have
a traumatic injury and your pack might be you know,

(26:45):
twenty feet away and you're not able to get to it.
So if you if you're keeping your pack on, I
always make it easily accessible, whether that's in the top
lid of your top lid of your pack, or somewhere
where you're having to dig through and pull everything out
out to get it. If I'm hunting with a with
a with a partner, I show them exactly where that

(27:07):
first aid kit is. And I usually have AID kits
for anybody that I'm hunting with so that way they
have it. They have it as well. But I always
show them exactly where this first aid kit is so
that way they can grab it, because if I'm I
might be rendering AID to somebody else, that way they
know exactly where it is. So I would always keep
it easily accessible at the top of my pack or

(27:28):
if you're if you're a fan of using it on
a waste belt easily where I can get at it
one handed. You know a lot of times, if if
you think about the most common injuries that we see,
it's usually going to involve in extremity. So if you
think about trying to dig through your pack where you're
trying to pull out a tourniquit or a bandage and

(27:51):
trying to do that one handed. That's gonna you're going
to find out pretty quickly that we're the most efficacious
place to pass that aid kit.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Is Oh yeah, So after listening to your seminar, the clinic,
whatever you want to call it, you actually gave me
a kit, a first aid kit, and thinking, you know,
it's like, all right, where should I put this thing?
And I the pack I was using at the time
had some molly attachment on the outside, and I got

(28:23):
another bag that would attach to the outside of my pack,
so with one hand, I can unzip it. I can
get in there and get into that stuff. And then
fast forward a year or so after that, I was
the summertime and I was out and set in trail
cameras with my dog, with my black lab Jocko, and
we're hiking in and it was in an old burn.

(28:45):
And this, if you've ever been in like a pretty
fresh burn, there's a lot of these weeds. I don't
know what you call them. There's somebody that probably could
tell me, but they kind of bloom in a purple,
purply pink flower, but they have these long stalks. They're
meant some places they'll be over your head. So I
had my machete and the dog was staying back really good.

(29:05):
But I was whacking through those trying to find the trail,
and there was there's blowdowns and it was just nasty.
And the dog had been keeping behind me really good
for for the whole time. And I was whacking these
these these weeds so I could kind of get see
through my stuff here. And I whacked one time and
I heard it, I felt it hit something solid, and

(29:29):
then my dog goes. I'm like, oh no, I just
whacked Jocko and I got him right on the eyebrow,
right by his eye, and man, blood like you've never seen,
like immediately, like a head wound on us, right, you know,
it just blood everywhere. And of course you know, I've

(29:52):
got a panic a little bit, but I throw my
pack off, and you know, I so I grab him.
I've calmed him down, and he's after the blast. He
was fine. He would just he can't see nothing because
he's got blood streaming into his eyeball. And so I
grab him and I put applied pressure. So I got
a pressure applied with a dog that's kind of squirming
around a little bit. So now I got to get

(30:13):
in my pack. Well, thank god it was on the
outside like you taught like you taught me. So I
got in there and I got some gauze and stuff
and applied pressure for a long time until the bleeding
kind of stopped, and then he seemed to be completely fine.
But he's got a huge, get gaping gash on his eye,
right right above his eyeball, like it missed his eyeball

(30:36):
by a couple of millimeters. Like I'm just so thankful
it didn't get his eye.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yea.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
So now it's like it's time to get the hell
out of there. Well, we got a hike. We're way
in there. We got a hike out, and it's uphill
the whole way. So I got to turn him loose
and let him mike. I thought about packing him, but
he's a black lab and he's not a large lab,
but I bet he's everybody's seventy five pounds, so hard
to kill. I'm just like, well, he can walk on
his own, but once that thing would start bleeding again,

(31:04):
it would be good for a while. They didn't start
bleeding again and then filling up his eye, and then
he'd kind of like wipe it away with his pole.
I was afraid he's gonna get a claw in it.
It ripped that thing even bigger. So every time he
kind of start pawn at it, it stop and apply pressure
for a while until it quit bleeding again, and then
we'd go. But anyway, we did this thing, you know,
leapbrogging all the way out of there with that, and

(31:26):
the whole time I couldn't help but think about, you know,
all the stuff you talked about and how important it was.
But you know, this, this is a dog, you know,
and you know, as if simple we we drove a
hundred miles into town and got on a Sunday and
got you know, medical attention, got him all sewed up
and everything, which was good. But you think, you think
about a hunting partner that is more gravely injured, and

(31:49):
and I was just like so happy that I had
that on the outside of my pack or easily accessible
and not buried. You know, you made mention, you know,
back then, like yeah, don't bury that thing in the
bottom of your pack where you have to rifle through
all your crap and un zip about a whole bunch
of zippers and get to it. Just have that thing
super readily accessible, and if if it's life saving majors,

(32:12):
you know, like if you're gonna have to deplay that
tourniquet or you know whatever, seconds right you you have
seconds to get this done without you know, something bad happening.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Right And that's and that's the big thing too, is
is knowing how to use the kit or the kit
that you have, so particularly with all the functions of
the tourniquet, you know, you would think like when when
it comes down to it, it's just the same for
like for archery and your shot repetition, where it's like
you're not gonna You're not gonna. It's the old adage

(32:48):
of you're not going to rise to the occasion, You're
going to fall to the level of your graining. So
in just the especially when you're already your heart rate's
going to be elevated, you lose like fine motor control
pretty easily. That's usually the first thing to go. And
just even the the act of taking that tourniquet out

(33:10):
of the plastic wrapping that it comes in can be huge.
I've seen that plastic wrapping defeat more medical professionals than
anything than any disease out there, and it's it's really
it just comes down to your trying to think about
like I got to get the tourniquet out, I got
to get this bleeding controlled. And the next thing, you know,

(33:31):
it's like a snowball rolling down a hill where you're
doing all of these things, none of them very well.
More importantly, none of them you know, very fast, and
you're just not being effective in your in your treatment.
So with most tourniquets, it's it's when it comes to
you know, opening them up, deploying them. There's a lot

(33:53):
of great tourniquits that are out there on the mark
you know, on the market. I would suggest you know,
like when you when it comes to tourniquets specifically, is
ordering them like directly from the these you know, like
like from companies that sell them versus Amazon and some
of these other sites. Because sometimes you can get these

(34:16):
uh you know, knockoff tourniquets that aren't built to standards
and specifications. So the tourniquets that are out there now
are uh tested to you know, to test it to
industry standard and have a lot of data that's been
over you know, twenty years of warfare through the Committee

(34:37):
of tactical combat casualty care. So there's a lot of
good you know, efficacy for these tourniquets and vantages. In fact,
you know, the ones that that I advocate for have
all been I've you know, used, you know, in in
real life in combat. And it's great that we're actually
starting to see these tourniquets, you know, and and uh

(34:58):
and uh gauze actually now present in our in our
hospitals and even our you know, our law enforcement is
now carrying these tourniquits too, which is great to see.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Oh man, that's awesome. So somebody might say, well, man,
I don't want to carry a tournique in my final harness.
I mean that's a lot of weight. Those things don't
weigh anything. What are they like ounces? Just a few
ounces not it exactly.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
I mean most of those big maine way like. Yeah,
And if you don't like carrying it there, that's fine.
You can even just put it in one of your
cargo pockets, just so that way you have something on
you because if when that happens, trying to reach for
that tourniquit is you know, and I you know, it's hard,
like a belt is not is not going to suffice

(35:47):
for a tournique. A lot of times when I hear
people about using a belt, more than likely they're creating
what we call a venus tourniquet, so they're putting pressure,
but not enough to up an arterial bleed. Uh. It's
for anyone that's had a tourniquet on applied appropriately, it
is extremely painful to have. Like, it is extremely painful,

(36:11):
and you know, once a tourniquet's on, usually it has
We usually try to get that tourniquet off within two hours.
You know, beyond two hours, we start to get concerned
for you know, uh, tissue death below that level of
the injury. So because what you're doing is you're cutting

(36:32):
off the blood flow to to try to stop the
life threat and bleed while all that other tissue that's present,
like if it's in your leg, you know, all that
muscle that's that's in your lower leg that's not getting
good blood flow, and after around two hours, that muscle
starts to starts to die off. And when that muscle
dives off, that can release toxins and that can cause

(36:55):
some pretty significant issues, particularly with the electricity of your heart.
So we usually recommend like if that Turnicut's. You know,
once that we usually try to convert that tourniquet at
the two hour mark. And if you can't get that
tourniquet off in two hours, it usually stays on until
you can get to a higher level of care where

(37:16):
we can get some medications and some devices on board,
uh to ensure that once you release that tourniquet, those
toxins don't cause an issue with your heart.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Okay, that's good information. So everybody says, oh, I'm good,
I'll just carry some quick clot What what's what's the
lowdown on quick clot Everybody throws that around.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah, so quick clot is it is a great you know,
it's a great It's a type of what we call
a chemostatic agent. Uh. Back when I first came into
the army, UH, we had for for bleeding control, they
have these things this uh it was these quick clot
was this uh, these granules that looked like sand and
you would actually pour that into a wound. And when

(38:02):
you would pour it into a wound, it would actually
basically almost cauterize the bleed, which was great if we
were pouring it in, because we were pouring it into
like you know, abdominal wounds and these wounds like near
the in the groin, and it was great at stopping bleeding.
The problem was is it was you know, it was

(38:23):
killing off any sort of vital tissue, was creating a
huge problem for our surgeons. So we really weren't helping
our patients too much. So then uh, they basically put
the chemicals of the that were in the granules, then
put it into a bandage and that way the bandage
then could be packed into a wound and then potent

(38:44):
then could eventually be pulled away. So the goal was
is to create a like a blood clot you know
in the area of the traumatic wound. So areas that
you'd want to use quick clot would be you know,
in the extremity. So anything in your arms, uh, you know,
your your arms and your legs, you don't really you

(39:05):
don't want to put any sort of packing material what
we call in the box here, so in your chest
and in your your pelvis, because what happens is you
can just be packing things in for days and you're
not getting a good uh, you're not getting good control
the bleeding. In order for a lot of these hemostatic
type agents to work. You actually have to hold pressure

(39:27):
on the area of bleeding for three minutes to really
get the full properties of that hemostatic agent. Before we
had the quick clot gauze. I can't tell you the
number of wounds that I've packed extremities where I've been
able to put in uh, just with just regular roll

(39:51):
gaus that you can get from you know, Walmart, er
any drug store where you can pack in to a
wound and hold pressure and have pretty good effect from
from like a from stopping that bleed. So the thing
too is that these these agents, those hemostatic bandages, they

(40:12):
could get pretty expensive sometimes. You know that can be
when you when you look at the the what you know,
hunting in it itself. You know, tag costs are high
to begin with, and then if you're you're factoring in travel,
you know, broad heads, packs everything, you know what, by
the time it gets to like things like food and

(40:33):
and your your first aid kit, that's usually the first thing.
It's like, I got band aids, I got you know,
I'm good, I don't need anything for first aid. And
it's like I'm not paying you know, however, you know,
forty fifty dollars for one bandage. You know, it's like
that would be a pretty big er you know for
me to for me to want to use that versus, Hey,
I'd rather see somebody use if they're going to carry anything,

(40:57):
have a tourniquit and then you know, if they and
then having that just like some rolled gauze they you know,
they can buy over the counter, and then just having
a dressing and go over the top, whether that's like
an elastic bandage, something like an ace bandage that works.
That works very well. Now I will say, like hemostatic
guz is great. If you told me, like if I

(41:19):
could you know a hemostatic agent versus an non hemostatic agent. Gods,
I would take a hemostatic agent every day just because
it's it. I mean, it's it's definitely added at benefit
sometimes though it that that also can drive up cost,
and when folks are looking at it, it's like I
don't want them to just totally you know, miss you know,

(41:43):
not take an AID kit because they don't want to,
you know, but the you know, they don't want to
spend the money for like a hemostatic dressing.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
Oh yeah, yeah, you know, it's it's funny and it's
a fine line of like how much you want to
spend on stuff, but sometimes well you want this thing
to work really good or kind of good. Like I've
always whenever I come to those crossroads, and no matter
what I'm buying, you know, whether it's stuff or the

(42:11):
house or whatever, it seems like every time I try
to cheap out at the time I need to use
it or need to do whatever the task is, then
I'm mad at myself for buying the cheap stuff, like
dang it, I should have just bought the good whatever
it was. And and because they just work better, right, yep,
maybe maybe that's something save up for, Like start now

(42:32):
you got your hunting September, start saving a little bit
of money, you know, get that hemistatic hemistatic gauze and
you know, for the price of you know what, five
trips to Starbucks, you could pay for pay for some
of that exactly.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
And it and it's really too It's like it's it's
a peace of mind knowing that that kit is there
and it's you know, everything is right. It's it's pre
packaged where it's like, hey, I have you know, it's
I have I know I have this this hemostatic gauze there,
I have a bandage. You know, everything is set ready
to go. And you know, I know I made that

(43:09):
joke about band aids, but you know it's always good
to have have those types of things in there too.
Having band aids and gauze. Duct tape works great, lucas
lucaside tape. Foot care is another big thing as well,
being able to you know, with your boots being broken
in and just having like when you get back from
camp each night, just being able to take your boots

(43:31):
off and air you know, air out your feet can
be huge for us. The you know, coming from I
see this a lot with Midwest hunters. You know, we
because it's colder and we do a lot more like
there's not a lot of you know, spot and stock
type hunting where we are. Uh, you know, guys will
just be like, well, I'm going out West. I'll take

(43:51):
my you know, I'll take my my eight hundred gram
finsilate boots. But they'll do a September elk hunt and
it can be super hot and you know, in September,
regardless of where you are, and their feet, they you know,
are sweating as they're walking up the mountain, and now
you have all that moisture that's just sitting in your feet,

(44:13):
and that's coddling blisters, and now it's it's potentially ruining
your hunt that you've you know, saved up and put
in time for. And these small little things that can
derail your hunt when it comes to you know, just
like these these self care things, being able to make
sure that your feet are well taken care of. Also
to making sure that like with water purification, having a

(44:37):
way to sanit, you know, make sure that you're getting
clean water, because if you're dehydrated on the mountain and
then you you get something like giardia where you're having
you know, massive diarrhea on the side of the mountain
is never a never a good thing. So I make
sure too that I that I keep some you know,
over the counter medication with me, whether that's you know,

(44:59):
in addition to ti long on ibuprofen, having things like
a modium, you know, things like that can really be
a lifesaver.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, that whole water filteration thing. It's funny. I've hundled
with a lot of guys that are like, oh, yeah, well,
it's a it's a spring, it's coming right out of
the side of the mountain. I mean, I mean, the
water's fine, and I won't drink it. I will not
drink it, and I'm probably you know, over you know,
over careful with it. But back to your point, if

(45:30):
you get giardia, you know, and it may not hit
you for a couple of days. But man, I just
don't want to be taken out of the hunt. You know,
I live all year for this. I'm usually invested quite
a bit of time and effort and money into these trips.
You know, got a camera, guy, I can't afford to
be taken out of the game by Giardia. But right,
just filter my water. That's why I have an air

(45:52):
That's why I or not air filter, water filter. That's
why I have water filters. That's why you know I
have this equipment. I'm just going to use it. You know,
if you collect this stuff over time, save your money,
you know, don't instead of blowing money on vices like
you know, zen pouches and chewing tobacco and and Dutch brothers,
you know, twice a day, you know, you can take

(46:15):
some of that negative money you spend on vices and
put it into your hunting gear and have good stuff tote.
That way you don't get taken out of the game.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Right, absolutely, And it's too it's a it's a peace
of mind for you know, it's a peace of mind
for your family too, just because it's like, you know,
that's you want to make sure that it's like, hey,
I've done everything in my power not only to be
successful on the hunt, but then you know, to be
able to to like return home and you know, like
even then just having a that's part of the planning

(46:46):
process too, where it's like, hey, here's where I'm going
to be. Here's a you know, like I always tell
folks if they if they take medication daily, having a
pre made list of medications with them just so then
that way, if they have to go to they hospital,
sometimes at hospital might not have records that you know,
readily available to you know, to them, so that way

(47:09):
they at least know offhand, like exactly what they have.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
Yeah, that's good, that's good, all right. Scenario time. We
talked a little bit earlier about those knives with the
replaceable blades that have long knives that everybody but he
tries to cut their fingers off with. You can always
tell when it's hunting season on on Facebook because people
start start posting the pictures of their fingers about cutoff. Yeah,

(47:36):
I've cut myself a little bit. I'm super careful with
those things, but almost all my buddies have have got
really bad cuts with them things. So here's a scenario.
You're breaking down your elk. You know, you're you're you
took some chances because you're you know, you're cutting, you're
you're trying to skin out that leg, you know, and
instead of cutting towards your buddy, you cut towards your body,

(47:58):
which is a huge non I even tell it to
myself when I'm by myself, cut towards your buddy, not
your body, because I'll catch myself trying to do that.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
You know.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
It's like you get you get in the zone and
you're you know, you're moving your knife and it just
makes sense to cut this way, and you're just like,
I'll just like stop stop cutting that direction. Cut away
from myself. Okay, it's a little more awkward, a little
more uncomfortable, but if I slip, I'm not gonna like
bury this knife in my groin and have a problem.

(48:30):
So let's say I didn't do that. I bury that
that knife in my groin and I'm like, oh, first
instinct pull it out, But do you one? Okay, you
have choices. Number one, do we remove it? Number two?
Leave it in. Leave it in until you do something else,
like break down. What happens if I do that or

(48:52):
my buddy does that? What? What's the first thing you
need to do?

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Yeah? So the first thing, honestly, with any sort of
entailed object you have, whether it's a whether it's a
weapon or anything, is you want to try to leave
it in place. You don't want to try to move it.
You know, this is a big thing when it comes
to with archery season. We see a lot of you know,
there's a lot you know, arrows that get shot, and

(49:17):
you know sometimes we'll see like ricochets or puncture wounds.
You want to leave that in because the problem is
and sometimes when you pull out foreign objects like that,
it could be against an artery or basically stopping a
flow of blood. And now that you've removed that, now
you have this uncontrolled bleed. So you've made a you

(49:39):
can potentially make a bad situation worse. So if it
was that scenario where it's in the groin and there's
you know, there's going to be some bleeding. I would
immediately look at like exposed that area, meaning like trying
to get the you know, get the pants out of
the way so I can see the skin, and then

(50:00):
I would be putting it. You know, if there's a
lot of bleeding where I would see like there's like
it's almost like with each furtbeat you can see the
blood coming out. My first instinct would be to put
a tournique on it and make sure that that tourniquet
is tight. Now let's say with that same scenario, you

(50:21):
don't have a lot of bleeding, it's just in the skin.
It's you know, there's some bleeding, but it doesn't look
to be bleeding. I would have a tourniquit like I
would have it basically on my leg, but not tight,
but it would be there, and I would try to
stabilize it best I could, meaning that if there's like

(50:42):
if I had an arrow, I would try to cut
it down as best I could. If it's a it's
I it's the havel on or one of those removable blades.
If there's a way to take the handle off and
leave the blade, you know somewhat in there, because you
don't want to move it around too much because as
you move there's a potential that it could be cutting

(51:03):
that more and more, so you want to try to
at that point, I would not want to be moving
that casualty around because anytime you move it, there's a
chance that you know, you have to, there's a chance
that whatever that that that knife is, that knife blade
is still in there potentially cutting up healthy, healthy tissue.

(51:25):
But normally we don't want to pull anything out. It's
it's in there until we can get to a higher
level of care.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
So yeah, I just I'm just picturing that. I'm just
picturing this right now. So you're basically you're sitting there
until help comes. You stabilize it, and you're sitting there
till help comes. Let's say you're six miles deep and
on some nasty steep terrain, and do you want to

(52:01):
wait for training medical professionals to get there before you
pull that thing out. Let's say you're like, I'm pretty
sure this this have long not in an artery, it's
the plays three inches long. I'm gonna pull it out.
Like like, at what point do you're like, Okay, you
have all your tourniquet in place, You're ready to go,

(52:24):
do you just like I'm gonna pull this thing out
and hope for the best.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
Yeah, So, you know, it kind of it comes to
it where it's just like you're trying to choose between
the least wrong answer, because it's there are those situations
where there's those situations where it's like, hey, there's weather
coming in, and it's like, okay, I could you know,
let's say those horrible weather and you know, we haven't
talked about it, but you know, hypothermia kills more people

(52:51):
in outdoors and probably anything else out there, you know, exposure,
regardless of whether it's you know, in you know, New
Mexico or Alaska. And it's like, Okay, if i stay here,
there's a very good chance that I'm going to die
of hypothermia versus like if I need to make it
down the mountain. And just like you alluded to having

(53:11):
that tournique on, you know, most of the time, particularly
with a lot of these these knives that have these
surgical blades, it's the wound channel is so small and thin.
It's very lethal for sure. You know, it can it
can slice some meat and vital tissue. But if it's
you know, if if their effect is is where you

(53:33):
you're in a situation where you have to pull it out,
having some direct pressure over that wound is going to
be essential, like whether that's with gauze, a pre made bandage.
I'm a huge fan of having these because even if
you have a tourniquet on, you know, not all bleeding
need a tourniquet, right, you know, And and really what

(53:55):
we try to teach folks is, you know, this is
the type of life threatening bleed you meaning it's it's pulsatile,
meaning it's this bright red blood. Because any wound, like
if you're not a trade medical person, any wound like
even you touched on head wounds, you know, head and
face wounds, they bleed a lot. It's a high vascular area,

(54:15):
so they can look horrible. You know, hand wounds too.
There's a lot of asculature in your hand, so you
can look at it and be like, man, this is
a lot of bleeding here in my hand, and I
hit an artery and you have a lot of smaller
you know, arteries here in your hand, and you can
bleed a lot from there. But a lot of folks
will jump right to a tourniquet right away, and it's like, well,

(54:36):
maybe sometimes you can put some like that would be
a great case to maybe putting some gaus in and
just holding it there. And if now you have bleeding
that's soaking through the gauze, Okay, maybe this might be
a little bit more severe where I might want to
look at potentially putting a tourniquet on. But for that
scenario that you're describing where we got to pull that
that you know, that blade out because it's like I

(54:57):
have to get down. If we don't get out that
this is weather's coming in and I'm gonna, I'm gonna,
I got to make it down the mountain, I would
have a you know, we touched on the tourniquet, but
having a bandage, particularly one that there's a lot of
bandages out there that an absorbent pad that you can
actually wrap around to around the pad, so it's like

(55:21):
it's almost like they call them, like, you know, emergency
trauma dressings. So it's a it's a uh basically like
a big band aid that's got some force behind it,
so you can actually almost create like a pressure, uh
of what we would call a pressure bandage. And what's
nice about pressure bandages are is that you can still

(55:41):
uh you can still have good effect on major bleeding
without having to necessarily throw a tournique on and then
having that that problem is because once you have a
tourniquet on, now you're up against the clock if you
don't want to prevent you know, long term tissue loss
or you know, because once you know, tourniquits, once they
get beyond four to six hours, that's really where we

(56:04):
start to get concerned about, you know, the the vascular
status of that limb, you know, you know, basically below
the level of where you put that tourniquet on. So
in that case, going back to that scenario, I would
have a bandage on there, and you know, as you walk,
you know, you're gonna be pumping blood down to that extraorinity.

(56:24):
So I would be looking at that area to see like, okay,
is there You're probably gonna bleed through. But if there's
a lot of copious amounts of bleeding, uh, you know,
a lot a large area of blood, I'm probably going
to have to reassess that dressing several times before I
make it down me the mountain because Again, if if

(56:44):
anybody's had a tournique on, you put that tourniquet on,
You're not going to be able to walk down the
mountain effectively with that. That's just not gonna you know,
you're you're not having any sort of blood flow. That
limb is no longer going to be functioning for you.
I mean, if anybody's like, you know, when your legs
asleep like that, multiply that I can and go out

(57:06):
and run, it's just not going to happen.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
Oh yeah, okay, Now question turniicut over the pants or
remove the pant leg or remove the pants.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
Oh, you can put a tournique over the the overclothing. Ideally,
the tourniquet is going to be most effective when it's
directly on the skin, so that's you know, that's obviously
what we like. But you can put a tourniquet on
over the over over like I you know, when I
say overclothes, you know, any sort of like your traditional

(57:39):
hunting pants, A tourniquet will be effective over the top
of that. But ideally we'd like to try to get
that on the skin. Now, you can use a tourniquet.
Ideally we like to get that tourniquet at least two
to three inches above the wound. So let's say, you know,
when I was first taught in the military, we always
put like a tourniquet on. It was a high and tight,

(58:00):
so we try to get it as high up on
the extremity as possible. And then you know, over time,
with more data that came out, you know, it's like, well,
we don't need to put a tournique up that high initially.
You know, once we get once we get the objective secure,
and there's you know, no longer any you know, active
gun fire going on. You know that It's funny the

(58:21):
people that my one of my UH instructors is like, hey,
the you know, the best piece of equipment medical equipment
you can bring to the next war is is a
gun and more firepower. I'm like, it actually makes a
lot of sense. But you know, being able to put
that tournique on, you know, you can put a tourniquet
below the level of the nee for a for a

(58:42):
lower extremity injury. UH. It used to be that, hey,
we you don't want to put a tourniquet below a joint,
and it's like, Noah, there's literature out there that shows
that it's actually very effective and uh, you know, can
also be less painful having it, you know, on having
a tournique up high on your arm or you know
low or high on your thigh. You know, having it

(59:04):
just two to three inches above the wound can be
very effective. But you can to answer your question, you
can definitely put it over clothing, but ideally you want
that tourniquet on the skin. One of the biggest issues
I see with tourniquet use is when you tighten that
tourniquet up, you want to make sure that you pull
all the slack out of that tourniquet. If you put

(59:27):
it on just somewhat loose and you try to twist it,
what ends up happening is that you can cause the tourniquet,
the material, and the tourniquet to twist and you're not
getting effective Like basically you're not getting an effective feel
with that tourniquet.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, So from the
time from the initial wound to the time you need
like it becomes very apparent like obviously that man, that's
a bad wound and it's bright blood and it's hulsating
or spraying or whatever. How long until we get that

(01:00:04):
tourniquet on before you're a goner? How many How long
do you have before you bleed out?

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Usually it's it more than likely within about two minutes,
for sure. Yeah, there's usually between I mean usually between
two minutes is what it'll take too, from the initial
from the initial injury to when you can completely exanguinate
out as about two minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Wow. Yeah, so and you want to keep as much
blood in there as you can, so absolutely every second matters,
absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
You know, the average adult has about maybe anywhere from
six to seven liters of blood in their body at
at you know, and you can lose all of it
very very quickly, very quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Yeah, got that pump pushing it out.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Yeah, exactly. And if you think about it from a
standpoint of you know, if you're if you've already been
exerting yourself, you're you know, you're dehydrated as it is,
your heart rates are elevated, and then you have that
initial injury, well that heart rate starts to spike, and
you know, then it's you're up against the clock at

(01:01:15):
that point.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
Yeah, So shifting gears a little bit. We're hunting with
a buddy and he ain't looking so good. His face
gets really red. You can start seeing some blood vessels
on his forehead and he's like, man, I got heartburn
real bad. I just I don't feel good. If I burp,

(01:01:36):
it kind of makes it feel better, but I just don't.
I'm not feeling so good. And it's it's warm. But
it's not like he shouldn't be having a heat stroke, right, Yeah,
maybe it may be a heart attack, like what like
in your five six miles from the truck, what are
we going to do?

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Right exactly? There's you know, it's funny you bring that up,
because you know, I thought you were just describing my
last my last back country hunt. There anytime that I
go in the back country.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
I could almost look like that too.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
Yeah, it's like, man, I told you that in confidence,
but but no, So you know, it's it's funny you
bring that up, though, because if you look at most
of your back like if for medical training for guides,
like for like outfitters for instance, you know they require
them to be you know, first Aid certified and to
have a CPR certification, And it's like, well, if somebody

(01:02:33):
has a heart attack in the back country and there's
really not much you're going to be able to do
for that person because you you might be able to
do CPR initially, but anybody that's done high quality CPR
can attest. Like we switch out in the hospitals, you know,
every two minutes for people that are pushing on pushing

(01:02:55):
on somebody's chest, because it is a you're expending all
large amount of If you're not dripping and sweat after
you done your first round of CPR, you know, you're
probably not. You're probably not. I'm sure you know, Dan
probably doesn't sweat if he has to do you know, cprs.

(01:03:15):
But but yeah, for most of us, for most of us,
uh alter, yeah, we we probably are. You know, we
probably would would sweat quite a bit. So I think
that for for most folks, you know, unfortunately, and we
see this quite a bit, that if they have a
heart condition, you know, it's important to know that going in.

(01:03:37):
So then if that way, if they have some medication, hey,
I take medication for chest pain, It's like I would
want to know that because if and if they have
a heart history, that's something too, like talking with your
doctor prior to going uh, prior to going on a hunt. Hey,
is this something that I should be able to you

(01:04:00):
based on my you know, physical fitness level, because you're
not going to be able to do we just don't
have the medication. And unless you're carrying a defibrillator on
your back, sometimes you know that's not going to be
help You know sometimes that even that's not helpful in
the back country. So, you know, doing CPR is one
of those things that you might be able to do

(01:04:21):
it for a couple of rounds, but sooner or later
you're going to tire out and at some point you're
either going to have to either have some you know,
you yourself are going to have to go for help,
or somebody's gonna have because you're just going to run
out of You're going to run out of breath yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Yeah, yeah, I you know, I'm I turned fifty one tomorrow,
so I'm not no spring chicken anymore. And you know,
once you hit fifty, you really start wondering about, you know,
your ability to hike in the mountains and stuff. I
can hike pretty good for the most part, maybe not.
I I'm no ferrari. I'm more of a bulldozer, right,

(01:04:59):
I can I'm up those mountains, but it's slow, you know, deliberate,
it's not I'm not going to race anybody up the mountain. Yeah,
Steve Ranella, that guy could probably you know, crush me.
But but I have a good friend who's quite a
bit younger than me. I out weigh him by a lot.
He looked very fit, he is fit, he's you know,

(01:05:21):
a good hunter. But he had a heart attack here
a few months ago, and that made me. That made
me really think, you know, man, what am I next? Right?
I mean, we all try to eat as healthy as
you can, but then you got your vices and you're
like some cheesecake or I'll have this or whatever. Well
I went in and got a scan, a chess scan

(01:05:43):
where they do a calcium scan, because I'm like, you know,
I don't want to I don't want to find out
on the mountain that I got a problem. I want
to try to get checked out before I ever go.
So so I've been going to the doctor a lot,
getting all these scans and checks, and like, you know,
you turn fifty, you know you should probably get the
old probably get a tune up if you need one.

(01:06:04):
So I would aim absolutely had this chest scan and
came back good. It's it's clear. They're like use zero blockages.
Looks really good. So I was super happy about that,
celebrated at Krispy Kreme, had some donuts. Not just kidding, perfect, Yeah, exactly,
that's the best way to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
But Dirk, you bring up a great point. You know,
these preventative measures that we do, you know, with the
annual like the what you're describing the coordinary calcium seat
teeth scan. You know, it's a great cardiovascular screening tool,
you know, particularly in individuals where it's like, hey, there,
you know, there could be there's a chance of you know,

(01:06:41):
you know, increased risk for heart related events, and it's
it's a great diagnostic test that can you know, really
help you and your doctor determine whether or not like, hey,
this is you know, I really need to either you know,
reduce my like you know, like adjust my lifestyle modifications
because I'm at if you have a high a high

(01:07:04):
calcium score, that means that hey, there's there's a lot
of afrosclerosis or block or you know, blockages in some
of the major vessels that that help bring blood to
your heart. So when your heart is working over time
such as like walking up a mountain. You know, you
don't want to find out that you've now had a

(01:07:25):
what we would call a positive stress test where you
know you're having symptoms of a heart attack because now
your your heart is no longer able to pump blood
to meet the bodies uh like oxygen demands. So I
think that's great. I think you know, more people should
should do those preventative type testing and and even just

(01:07:48):
having your annual you know, visits with your with your
doctor to make sure like hey, if you know blood
pressure is controlled and and that your uh, you know,
your cholesterol level, anything that we can do to to
you know, reduce those you know, those cardiovascular risk factors
that are going to keep you one hunting longer, doing

(01:08:08):
what you love, and two when you're out there, being
able to be the most effective and feeling great. You know,
if you're if you're uncontrolled blood pressure, think about it
as if you're if you're trying to please, you know,
water out a very small hole. You know it's gonna

(01:08:30):
take much more force. You're gonna be more susceptible to
high altitude injury. The altitude is gonna affect you a
lot more. You're gonna be more at risk for dehydration,
You're gonna be more out of breath, and it's just
you're gonna have, you know, potentially a lousy hunt. You
might have missed up, missed opportunities. I mean, I'm sure
in your experience you've had plenty of times it's like, man,

(01:08:51):
if I didn't get to the top of that ridge
or to that draw, you know when I did, I
would have missed that opportunity at that out.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Yeah, Oh yeah, yeah. I think men in general, you know,
we don't take care of ourselves. It's like, ah, it's
almost like a badge of pride, Like I haven't been
to the doctor in ten years, you know, and I
all my buddies say that, and I've said it a lot,
you know, but I feel like at some point, like
you get to a certain age, You're like, you know,

(01:09:21):
that's not probably the smartest thing. So I've I've been
taking better care of myself and get go to the doctors. Well,
you have to get a baseline right, you have to
get your right checked, and you have to do set
a baseline for all this stuff. That way, if there
is something that comes up and you don't and you
start feeling like weird or bad. They can look at,
you know, stuff from five years ago, ten years ago.
You know, if you're in there consistently, they can say,

(01:09:43):
oh wow, this has really changed. This is probably why
you're feeling like crap or whatever. So you know, I
encourage all the all the guys out there, listen, take me.
I don't care if you're thirty five, go in get checked,
you know, check yourself out, have the doctors look you over,
you know, build that baseline if you're if you're a lady,

(01:10:07):
you're probably already doing all that kind of stuff because
you know, girls seem to take care better care of
themselves and men do. But also encourage your partner, you know, hey,
go get in there and get checked out, just for
a peace of mind. If anything.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
Oh yeah, absolutely, And and like you said too, it's
it's you know, the time to take care of this
stuff is when you know that I've seen too, is
when people ignore you know, blood pressure when they're in
their forties. Well, guess what, it doesn't get any better
when you're in your fifties and sixties, and now it's
had ten years of you know, now your heart's having

(01:10:41):
to work over time for the past ten years to
try to meet your body's demands, and these problems compound
on one another. So by the time you hit sixty
and seventy, instead of doing you know, preventive maintenance on
your vehicle, you're doing damage control. Where it's like now
you're having to see, you know, having to have stands placed,
and now you're having to take you know, medication that

(01:11:04):
has you know, a higher you know, side effects to
it because as the conditions worse than you know, the
medications become higher from dosages, and the higher dosages you get,
the higher chance of side effects. And now you're no
longer able to do the things that you enjoyed just
because that you know could have happened that you know,
couldn't be taken care of earlier on just some good

(01:11:27):
you know, preventive preventive matenance checkups.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
Absolutely, absolutely well, man, I appreciate you coming on. I
think we're just about out of time here. How do
people find you online? Are you on social media? Much?

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
Yeah? We are, so it's oriyan oh are io N
Medical Consulting. That's our that's our company. We're on Also
we're on Instagram and We're on Facebook too, and our
website is just going through some uh some development right
now and they'll be back up. But we're you can
find us at Oriyanmedical dot org. We're actually uploading some

(01:12:05):
educational content here that basically gives folks, you know how
what we do is we have different tourniquets and different
medical devices that are out there, and we show people
how to actually use them and and just so some
good how to type videos. So that'll be coming here
in the next couple of months. But yeah, we're on

(01:12:26):
We're on social media Instagram, when and Facebook.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
So also, do you sell kits at all? These little
these medical kits still.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
We do, Yeah, we do. They're on our They're on
our website. We do have them. We're going to have
a newer, smaller aid kit coming out here soon in
the in the very near future. We're just right now.
We're just working through some supply chain issues right now.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Sure. Sure. One thing I regretted when after my dog
got hurt on that story I told is that I
didn't have more gear at the truck. I didn't have
more bandages and gauze and stuff at the truck to
help because at that point I had some paper towels
and he bled through those pretty quick on the way

(01:13:12):
off the mountain. But not only should you have this
stuff in your pack, have it in your truck, and
it's good. I'm glad. I'm glad you kind of elaborated on,
like you know, it's it's more than just having a
couple of band aids and some baby aspirin. Because people
always tell you, hey, get have a nice first aid kit. Well,
nobody ever tells you what's in a good first aid kit,

(01:13:33):
and not a lot of people are gonna tell you
a tourniquit. So check yeah, check out, check out Jimmy
stuff Ryan, and do yourself a favorite, buy him, buy
a kit, buy a kit for you and your buddy
by two or three. I mean, you can't have too
many first daid kits around and you'll be ready for
this fall. So well, thanks man, I appreciate you coming on.

(01:13:56):
And uh man, I'm sorry we haven't talked since I
don't know, it's been a couple of years.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
It was great to hear from me. I know it's
been it's been super busy, and I really appreciate you
reaching out. It's always great to catch up and thanks
for giving me the opportunity to talk to talk here
to everybody. I'm a huge listener of the podcast myself,
so it's great to great to connect.

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
Yeah, yeah, awesome. If you guys have any questions, reach
out to Jimmy directly. And and I'm sure we didn't
cover half of it. We could sit here for hours
and and go down rabbit holes about back country safeties.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:14:32):
All right, Well, thanks a lot for coming on, and
we'll catch everybody on the flip flop