There are a handful of places in this world where I feel truly content. At home with my wife and kids. In a tree stand in the fall woods as dawn approaches. On a sailboat ripping through small waves on a steady salt breeze… and in the high desert of Paulden, Arizona, at Gunsite Academy.
Last week I took part in the inaugural Defense Against Street Crimes course, one of several new specialized classes that have been under development at Gunsite Academy to help students adapt to a changing threat environment.
I’ll be talking more about the class over the course of the next week as I begin to unpack all I’ve learned, but I did want to at least give you taste of what we experienced in a class that focused not just on precision shooting, but also on providing combat casualty care to yourself (or others), and how to contact the authorities in the most efficient way to get the right kind of help rolling to your location after a defensive gun use.
One of the more interesting drills we ran was what I’ll call the “zombie drill,” for lack of a better name. The reduced-size target 12 or so yards away is nerve-wracking enough to shoot with the entire class and instructor cadre watching you, but here’s the thing… the target doesn’t stay down.
Every five seconds after it is knocked down by a solid bullet strike (low shots or glancing shots won’t put it down), it rises again.
After you’ve knocked the zombie target down twice, our instructor threw in either a Combat Application Tourniquet (CAT) or a SOF Tactical Tourniquet-Wide (SOFTT-W) and called out an injury that requires the application of the tourniquet to that affected limb. In the series of photos below, it was a left leg injury.
As a student attempting to deal with a spurting leg wound and a target that won’t die, you have to split your attention between the target and the tourniquet, engaging the rising threat every five seconds with a well-placed shot, then attempting to slip the tourniquet into place, ratchet it down, put in a single twist, and lock it in place.
Sounds easy, right?
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