A former combat military medic and an EMT for 13 years, Eddy Vershilovsky happened to be off-duty when a female pedestrian was severely injured after being hit by a vehicle. Now, a volunteer paramedic who works on trauma and pressure control, Eddy recalls the incident:

“She was unconscious upon arrival, with trauma to her chest, pelvis and right leg; and had active bleeding from her right knee. We immediately loaded the woman onto an ambulance that arrived shortly after, to a safer distance from the busy road. I saw that she would need hemorrhage control right away because bleeding was profuse and she was going into shock - she was pale, and either in cardiac arrest or close to it.

In Israel, silicone tourniquets are commonly used for bleeding injuries, which are typically effective; however, because it uses silicone material, you have to carefully stretch it to work it around a limb every revolution and do so without it slipping out of place. And, sometimes it doesn’t work around larger limbs. In this incident, the silicone tourniquet was too small to accommodate the patient’s limb. So I used the SAM XT-- I had it on me by chance. The SAM XT not only fit, but was a lot faster to apply. I just dropped the SAM XT around the patient’s leg, twisted the handle maybe once or twice, and secured it in place to stop the bleeding. It was really a great experience.

What impressed me most about the SAM XT was the speed of application and the speed of the hem control. I actually saw the bleeding diminish and then stop in a matter of seconds.”