Versatile Safety Pins
🕖 Reading Time, 1 minutes
The safety pin is a versatile and useful piece of equipment that has been around for over 150 years. Each military cravat comes with two and this video demonstrates ways to use safety pins that you may not have thought of.
- Securing a damaged limb to a casualty to keep the limb from flopping instead of trying to use a sling which takes more time and supplies to fashion, particularly where a tourniquet has been applied
- To secure an airway by pinning the casualty’s tongue to the front of their lip so they do not occlude their own airway with their tongue when you don’t have an NPA
- Securing a surgical airway in place to the casualty’s neck when using an endotracheal tube for the airway
“Sometimes you have to co-opt the equipment at hand to do the job.” Safety pins can be a surprisingly flexible piece of kit.
*this video is an excerpt from the Crisis Medicine Tactical Casualty Care series
