If you’ve followed the self-defense community for ten minutes, you’ve been told you need to carry a tourniquet. And that’s cool – tourniquets absolutely save lives. Unfortunately, it’s also a bit reductive to say, “if you have a tourniquet you’re medically prepared.” A tourniquet is to a human what a battery charger is to a car: the perfect tool for one specific task, but not helpful for most problems you could have. Thanks to the infinite variation of the human body and insults to it, your medical knowledge should go well beyond the tourniquet.