PHLster Flatpack Tourniquet Carrier

This is the PHLster Flatpack Tourniquet Carrier. Now it may just look like a couple of straps on a piece of plastic but the fact is the way these straps are attached to this piece of plastic make this one of the most elegant and simplest methods for carrying a tourniquet or really any piece of gear that you wanna keep attached to virtually anything and keep relatively flat, keep close to your body or close to a pack, close to a belt, we're gonna look at some of the application options here in a second. Well, what this is designed to do is help you carry a tourniquet primarily somewhere on your body where it can be concealed, it can be covered up, it can be out of the way or attached to a bag or maybe even to a hard point inside of your vehicle. Now, carrying a tourniquet is something that's become more and more obviously practical for anyone who's interested in personal defense, safety, taking care of themselves or taking care of others. We know what a simple lifesaving device this can be, relatively inexpensive and generally easy to carry but you don't wanna just kinda throw them into your pocket and have it unravel and flop around and not be staged properly.

You don't wanna have it get abused, you don't wanna have it get lost so something like the Flatpack is a great way to make sure that this is contained, it's staged properly, ready to go. Now this will hold a couple of different types of tourniquets and what you wanna know is how to use your tourniquet, you wanna decide what type of tourniquet you prefer, most people would go with the CAT-T or the SOFT-T or the SOFT-T Wide. Attaching it here to the Flatpack with these simple elastic bands, obviously there's much more durable rubber straps on the back, that's what you're gonna attach to your belt, that's what you can get MOLLE attachments for to attach to virtually any gear bag or maybe even a plate carrier or any kind of vest, anything that you're using to carry your other accessories maybe extra magazines, flashlights, things like that. You could also attach this to a sling if you had a home defense or a patrol rifle stage, you could pretty easily work the sling through these rubber straps as well and just have this actually attached to your rifles. So now you've got run to your closet, run to your quick access safe, go into the trunk, go into whatever carrier you've got in your patrol vehicle, you grab the rifle, it's got the magazine, it's got a light on and it's got all the other accessories you want, why not have a tourniquet or maybe an extra tourniquet attached as well?

The Flatpack, obviously then once it is staged, it becomes very, very easy to deploy the tourniquet, all you need to do and it's obviously set up for just any one-handed operation, very quickly and easily pop these elastic straps off, the tourniquet is then free, you don't have to go digging through a bag or zip anything or run the Velcro which might take more leverage than just simply popping off these elastic bands. A PHLster makes them great holsters, a John Hopkins is a great asset to the community and he put a lot of thought into this. This is actually the second generation, I've tested the first generation and the second one, they're really great, they're really durable. One of the best things about this second generation is the edges are a little bit more rounded and they aren't quite as sharp. If you've seen some people with the first generation, over time, the wear and tear could get through these elastic bands.

I actually attached to one of these, if you follow the Personal Defense Network Training Tour 2016, social media, you saw that I had my dog, ECAD dog out there with me. ECAD wears a vest, obviously she's in training to be a service dog and we attached one of these with a tourniquet onto her vest and the dog runs around, she's in and out of the truck, she's rolling around in the ground, she's in and out of the trees, she gets a lot of abuse on that vest. And we had one of these attached with a tourniquet that stayed on there for over three months and I was pretty impressed, you know, we figured we didn't take care of it at all, we didn't do anything special to it, it's out there in the rain on the ground, getting rubbed, banged up against all kinds of things, obviously she wasn't taking any special care of it. And I found this thing to be pretty durable, I have several police officers that I know have used these on duty gear now, wear and tear in and out, rolling around on the ground, dealing with suspects, all kinds of weather condition. Again, a very durable and convenient and I think elegant way to carry a tourniquet, the PHLster Flatpack.