Team from University of Michigan creates easier to use tourniquet to help save lives

Jul 03, 2023

Sarah Mayberry, M.P.H., Senior Medical Producer

Brandon Carr, Digital Content Producer

A car crash, a hunting accident, and a mass shooting are just a few of the situations where a tourniquet can save lives.

Tourniquets are used to stop the bleeding caused by a traumatic injury to an arm or leg. The devices are standard issued for military members, but most civilians only have a vague idea of what they are or how to use them.

A team from the University of Michigan hopes to change that and save lives in the process.

“It’s really heartwrenching to have someone lose their life because they didn’t have access to the proper tool,” said Dr. Kevin Ward, executive director of The Max Harry Weil Institute for Critical Care Research and Innovation.

Ward is an emergency physician and a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. He has seen firsthand how critical tourniquets can be.

“If you hit a major artery, you can literally bleed to death within minutes,” Ward said.

Ward acknowledges that standard tourniquets can be challenging to use and painful for the patient.

“In the military, we train to use tourniquets, but for civilians, especially if you’re talking about an elderly victim or a child, it can be a challenge,” Ward said. “At the institute here, we sort of reimagined what a new tourniquet would be, something that anyone could use sort of intuitively, and developed some special mechanics that makes it easier to apply and more effective.”

They teamed up with the University of Michigan College of Engineering to bring a fresh perspective.

The result was simple but brilliant.

“Sometimes, instead of thinking outside of the box, we think better inside the box,” Ward said.

The new device is called a Turn-I-Kit. It has a wider strap to make it less painful for the patient and a large handle that is easily turned, even by someone who is elderly or injured themselves.

“This is a one, two, three process,” Ward said.

Click here to see how to apply the Turn-I-Kit.

Realizing the lifesaving potential of what they had created, the Weil Institute partnered with a company called Precision Trauma.

“Precision Trauma is actually run by a group of retired Army Rangers,” Ward said.

Dr. Ethan Miles is the Chief Executive Officer at Precision Trauma. For him, this has become a new mission.

“To us, it was a really simple device that we felt anybody could use if we could get it to market,” said Miles. “Depending on where you’re injured, you can bleed out in three to five minutes, and so, that’s a lot faster than EMS is going to get to you most places around the world. So, really, you need to have something on hand, whether it’s in your office, in your vehicle, at your school, or at your home, where you can take care of yourself, you can stop that bleeding and then let EMS arrive and get you to the hospital.”

But just as Precision Trauma and the Weil Institute prepared to introduce the Turn-I-Kit to the public, war broke out in Ukraine.

“We’re aware what this product could do to save lives, so we decided to take our entire inventory and ship it out to Ukraine through various contacts that we have throughout the company,” Miles said.

They sent 780 Turn-I-Kits to Ukraine into the hands of civilians and citizen soldiers.

“In Ukraine, it’s not just the military that are being impacted, it’s actually many civilian centers as well,” Ward said. “It’s really important that the training tools and the actual treatment tools are very easy and intuitive to use.”

Ward ultimately wants to see the Turn-I-Kits easily accessible in boxes on the wall in public places, just like AEDs.

At home or abroad, the purpose is simple.

“If you have bleeding in your legs, in your arm, nobody should ever die from that when there’s such simple, easy, effective measures out there,” Miles said. “So really, that’s what we’re trying to do is get it out there and save some lives.”

The Turn-I-Kit costs $30 and is available online.

Click here to visit Precision Trauma’s website.

Click here to learn more about the Max Harry Weil Institute for Critical Care Research & Innovation at the University of Michigan.

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