I was thinking that many or most of the training businesses would have offered courses emphasizing training toward medical knowledge and skills with fewer pistol rounds required in a whole lot of local venues...

... As a way of adapting to public need, WuFlu related ammo shortages, etc.

One trainer that I respect said that you are more likely to save lives with medical/first-aid training than shooting.

I don't think this bend-rather-than-break adaptation happened.

Maybe because the government spent the last year telling us that if we interact closely with other people (as is pretty typical in first aid / EMT and related classes), we'll all die a horrible death.

Maybe they figured that because of that ^^^^^, enough people would stay away that it wasn't worth the cost of ramping up those programs.

Also because learning first aid skills isn't as "cool" as turning bullets into smoke and noise, so many "gun guys" aren't very interested in taking classes about that.

What both of them said.

Almost no way to run a trauma class when you're not allowed within 6" of someone else.

I took Dark Angel's 2-day DART class a few months before the pandemic. I took SIG's trauma management class this past spring. Night and day difference. Even accounting for differences in class content (one is 2 days, the other is 1 day), the SIG class was far less effective because you couldn't get hands on, basically. You can't work with a partner. We were lucky we got to even pass items around the room.

Maybe if things had been in some more permissive state, you'd get more interaction. But I doubt most organizations would be willing to jeopardize their program if some Karen snitched on them for not "social distancing".

And, as Rogue said, it's far less "interesting" to TQ yourself repeatedly than put holes in paper. I also bet a lot of people won't even make it through the slideshows without getting woozy. Watching people die on video is more than a little uncomfortable.

Said before: it's not as cool as shooting, and it's a lot more dirty.

Did a few force on force classes in the past years and one thing that I learned from that is that in a shootout someone is going to get hurt, so you better know how to treat a wound.

As a first responder at work I train that skill for many years now. I don't think my level of training is yet good enough.

quote:

Originally posted by Kampfhamster:
Said before: it's not as cool as shooting...

While it may ruffle some feathers, a lot of firearms training for many people is just fantasy camp with guns.*
First aid isn't fun, it's work, they have no real interest.



*(They get to shoot and use their guns in a way they never get to anywhere else. Especially in more urban, suburban areas with regimented public ranges being the only place to shoot.)

that's totally true.

To pile on what the other fellas said, the reality of “tactical” medical training is a good basic first aid class does as much for the end user as a “tactical” trauma class. Until you get to doing needle decompressions ( which is generally out of the scope of care for most people), it’s all stop the bleed, start the breath, and treat for shock.

I have had a bunch of medical training in the last couple of years. I can do needle decompressions, start my own IV, etc. Theres nothing magical, or tactical, about the main skills that you need to render aid or self treat. Not much has changed over the years except we now know that tourniquets do more good than harm.

Our medics are CONTOMS trained and this is the gist of what I get out of it.

I need to take a class that fully covers demcompression needles. My left lung has spontaneously lost seal before, and I would hate for it to happen away from a hospital. If anyone knows of a good medical training company in the Pacific Northwest let me know.

I found one aspect of a recent discussion with a friend rather interesting. He had read a worst-case societal-collapse survival book recently, and the author postulated that what we know as contemporary trauma treatment in the field is largely dependent on an existing infrastructure to facilitate a higher level of care. I would agree, as most of the training you get in a military or LE context is structured with the assumption that someone more skilled, with access to more sophisticated medical equipment will finish what you start in the field, and you are more of a stop-gap than anything else. The author actually went as far as to suggest that an injured member of a group in the context presented by his book ought to relinquish all his useful items to the group, and perhaps be left with a pistol to cause trouble for a pursuing enemy, as his friends hopefully retreat to safety.

I found it interesting to consider.

Before anyone goes crazy on me, I am merely presenting this as food for thought/discussion. I do not advocate this mindset as justification for the absence of medical training. I have received a good bit of field trauma care training myself, to include NCD, and think everyone ought to have a functional knowledge of those skills, and refresh them regularly. I am overdue for a refresher myself, and it has been weighing heavy on my mind of late.

Oh, and, obviously, in any context that would permit it, any trauma care is better than none. So, short of some situation where medical supplies are perhaps so limited that a casualty's condition would need to go untreated to conserve supplies for a more "deserving" potential future casualty, it goes without saying that you do everything you can for someone, situation permitting.

He may not be wrong if we get to societal collapse. Of course if that happens, things are going to be very ugly all over.