Hemostatic dressings in civil prehospital practice: 30 uses of QuikClot Combat Gauze.

To report the use and describe the interest of hemostatic dressings in a civilian setting, we provided medical prehospital teams with QuikClot Combat Gauze (QCG) and asked physicians to complete a specific questionnaire after each use. Thirty uses were prospectively reported. The wounds were mostly caused by cold steel (n=15) and were primarily cervicocephalic (n=16), with 19/30 active arterial bleedings. For 26/30 uses, hemostatic dressing was justified by the inefficiency of other hemostasis techniques. Those 30 applications were associated with 22 complete cessations of bleeding, six decreases of bleeding, and ineffectiveness in two cases. The application of QCG permitted the removal of an effective tourniquet that was applied initially for three patients. No side-effects were reported. The provision of hemostatic dressings in civilian resuscitation ambulances was useful by providing an additional tool to limit bleeding while rapidly transporting the injured patient to a surgical facility.