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Emergency Medicine & First Aid vocabulary · Bleeding and Wounds

Tourniquet

Meaning in emergency medicine & first aid, with examples

/ˈtɜːrnɪkət/nounCommon term

In emergency medicine & first aid, tourniquet means: A tight band placed around an arm or leg above a wound to stop heavy bleeding by squeezing the blood vessels shut.

In Turkish: turnike

How it is used

Current guidelines include commercial tourniquets for life-threatening limb bleeding that direct pressure cannot control, an approach brought into civilian care from military medicine. Crews record the time it was applied, often by writing it on the tourniquet or the patient. You apply, tighten or remove a tourniquet.

Example sentences

  1. Tourniquet applied to the right thigh at 14:05.

  2. We carry tourniquets in every bleeding control kit.

Common collocations

  • apply a tourniquet
  • tourniquet time
  • commercial tourniquet
  • improvised tourniquet
  • bleedingThe loss of blood from a damaged blood vessel, either out of the body through a wound or inside the body where it cannot be seen.
  • direct pressureFirm pressure pressed straight onto a bleeding wound, by hand or with a dressing, to slow or stop external bleeding.
  • hemorrhageThe medical word for bleeding, especially heavy bleeding, either from a wound or inside the body.
  • woundAn injury where the skin or other tissue is cut, torn, pierced or broken, for example by a knife, glass, a fall or a bite.

More terms: Bleeding and Wounds

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.