Better than shears?

[Pax]

Shit goes wrong, clothing gets folded up, doubled, tripled over and it get very difficult to access wound sites by chopping off clothing with just trauma shears, especially when the casualty is not cooperating.

So does anyone have any suggestions for something more effective than trauma shears to use to get clothing off? They work, yes. But time is of the essence, of course. So does anyone know of any devices, purpose-built for this application, improvised, whatever, that save seconds and blood?

I wish CTOMS or maybe 215 or someone would make some "serious shears" or something to that effect. Shears made for 1000D fabrics, that type of application..

[JB326]

Seat belt cutter? (maybe)

Attachment 14362

[bruin]

Serrated sheepsfoot blade, i.e. Spyderco Atlantic Salt.

[ST911]

If you have to gnaw through it with conventional shears, chances are pretty good you'll have to gnaw through it with other stuff as well.

I'm having good luck with Rip Shears on various materials. They obviously don't do as well with bunched/folded clothing, but will cut a few layers: http://www.ripshears.com/RipShears/Home.html

Seatbelt cutters are also an option, depending on the design. Knives with blunted/rounded tips can also work, but you risk cutting the patient.

[titsonritz]

I keep these along side my shears:http://www.benchmade.com/products/5

[matthewdanger]

I am a big fan the Benchmade strap cutters. They can usually be found fairly inexpensively.

[Iraq Ninja]

Seat belt cutters became very popular overseas with our docs and medics around 2007. Shears simply would wear out too quickly and the cutters allowed us to rapidly cut away clothing.

[mallninja]

How old/used are your shears? I know at work we throw 'em away pretty often because they lose their edge FAST. Cut through a pair of leather shoes/boots and they're done.

What about a "gut hook" type of knife used for field dressing deer, the type that only has the internal blade?

[NinjaMedic]

New shears work really well and they are free at least for me. New hooks work really well but few units issue them in large enough quantity to throw away after you use them a couple of times. Anything used more than a few times will start to become difficult to utilize quickly in my experience.

[NCMedic]

The thing about trauma shears is that they are cheap, I can buy a box of them for the price of some of the fancy cutters and such, and don't feel bad about losing them or tossing them when they get bloodied or become unusable.
You shouldn't be cutting the entire length of the clothing anyhow, snip and rip.....
I do have a CRKT rescue hook that is similar to the Benchmades, the biggest issue with the cutters is that the fabric has to have some sort of tension to be effective or it just bunches up.

Sent from this... Using that...