Tactical First Aid and System Collapse Medicine

This hands-on class will develop proficiency in basic battlefield medical care utilizing the military's latest Tactical Combat Casualty Care protocols.

Students will learn to stop traumatic bleeding from gunshot, knife wounds and blast injuries using the latest pressure bandages, tourniquets, and hemostatic agents. The improvisation of adequate substitutes for this equipment will be practiced extensively to allow students to respond to emergencies quickly, even if no dedicated bandaging material or tourniquets are available. Self-care and care under fire will also be addressed.

Students will also learn simple patient assessment techniques, as well as how to treat both a sucking chest wound and tension pneumothorax. Options for opening a patient’s airway are discussed and practiced. Students will learn how to use a nasopharyngeal airway (NPA).

In addition, students will learn how to treat themselves and families in the event of a longer-term breakdown in our current medical system. Wound cleaning and disinfection under field conditions and best practices for wound closure options will be discussed.

The instructor will provide students with information about what types of drugs to stockpile for natural disasters or a health care system collapse, along with methods for legally acquiring those pharmaceuticals Students will leave the class knowing what items should be included in a comprehensive medical kit and how to improvise those items in an austere environment.

All materials for the class will be provided by the instructor.

Minimum enrollment for this class is 10 people. If fewer than 10 students register, the class will be cancelled and you will get a full refund. You will also receive a full refund if the instructor is ill or subject to travel delays that would prevent him from teaching. With that said, I've only cancelled one class (due to my own illness) in my 25+ years of teaching open enrollment classes.

If you request a refund after registering, I will provide that refund as future class credit for any of the classes I teach. Barring exceptional circumstances, no refunds will be issued within 30 days of the class date.

Class tuition INCLUDES mandatory range fee.

About the instructor:

Greg Ellifritz is Active Response Training's President and Primary Instructor.

Greg recently retired after serving 25 years as a police officer. During his tenure, Greg spent 13 years as the full-time tactical training officer for a central Ohio police department. In that training position, he was responsible for developing and instructing all of the in-service training for his 55-officer agency. In addition to the training position, he also served as patrol officer, firearms armorer, bike patrol officer, bike patrol coordinator, sniper, and field training officer during the course of his career.

Greg holds instructor, master instructor, or armorer certifications in more than 80 different weapons systems, defensive tactics programs, and law enforcement specialty topics. In addition to these instructor certifications, Greg has successfully completed more than 4,000 hours of documented formal training with the leading firearms, empty hand fighting, and edged weapons instructors in the country.

Greg additionally served as an adjunct instructor for the Ohio Peace Officer’s Training Academy, teaching firearms, defensive tactics, bike patrol, knife defense, and physical fitness topics. He has taught firearms and self defense classes at the national and international level through The American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers, The International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors, Rangemaster Tactical Conference, and Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police.

He has a master’s degree in Public Policy and Management with a focus on criminal justice policy issues and has written for several publications and websites including: ‘The Firearms Instructor,” “Ohio Police Chief,” “Combat Handguns,” Survivalblog.com, “Concealed Carry Magazine,” Primedia's "Personal & Home Defense Annual," "Recoil Magazine," and “American Handgunner.”

With a passion for adventure travel, Greg spends an average of six weeks a year exploring third-world countries. Recognizing that his travels often take him far away from established medical care, he has completed dozens of wilderness, tactical and military medicine classes, earning multiple Tactical First Aid instructor certifications. Having provided medical care for both himself and his traveling companions in austere conditions on six continents, he now teaches medical courses based on the lessons he’s learned from more than two decades of taking care of sick and injured individuals in remote areas devoid of access to formal health care systems.

Greg can be contacted through his website: ActiveResponseTraining.net.

Host or Publisher Greg Ellifritz- Active Response Training