STOP THE BLEED® Equipment
The evidence-based standard
STOP THE BLEED® is the bleeding control standard built on two decades of Department of War combat casualty care research and the battlefield practices that reduced preventable death from hemorrhage in Iraq and Afghanistan. Products carrying the STOP THE BLEED® mark are held to that standard, and only companies licensed by the Department of War can sell them.
Licensed sellers
A company has to be granted a license by the Department of War before it can sell STOP THE BLEED® equipment. These are the companies currently licensed to do so.
- American Red Cross
- American College of Surgeons
- Bound Tree Medical
- Common Cents EMS Supply
- Cubix Safety
- Stop the Bleed Coalition
- TacMed Solutions
- TriTech Forensics
- Zoll Medical
- iTHRIVE
Know what you are buying
Many kits are sold under names, colors, and packaging that resemble the program. A STOP THE BLEED® kit is easy to confirm:
- The name is STOP THE BLEED® Basic, Intermediate, or Advanced. Nothing appears in front of the mark, and no other configuration word is used.
- The seller is on the licensed list above.
- The label says “Assembled by” and names the company. No single company makes all the components, so “Manufactured by” on a kit is a sign to look closer.
- The tourniquet and hemostatic dressing are products the program has accepted.
If a kit fails any of these, it is not a STOP THE BLEED® kit, whatever the name suggests. How lookalike kits are marketed, and what to watch for
The three kits
- STOP THE BLEED® Basic Kit
Tourniquet for severe bleeding from an arm or leg, and plain gauze for packing a wound anywhere on the body.
- STOP THE BLEED® Intermediate Kit
Tourniquet for severe bleeding from an arm or leg, and a hemostatic (clotting) dressing for packing a wound anywhere on the body.
- STOP THE BLEED® Advanced Kit
Adds a vented chest seal for penetrating chest injuries, for organizations whose responders have additional training.
What makes a kit a STOP THE BLEED® kit?
This mark identifies equipment sold under license from the Department of War.
How equipment gets into a STOP THE BLEED® kit
The program’s reference point is the Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care (CoTCCC), the Department of Defense body that reviews the evidence on battlefield trauma care and publishes a list of recommended devices. That list is written for military use and includes devices meant for medics and other trained providers.
STOP THE BLEED® tourniquets are drawn directly from the CoTCCC list. Hemostatic dressings are reviewed by the program and accepted only if they meet its requirements for use by members of the public with the training the class provides. Every tourniquet and hemostatic dressing sold under the STOP THE BLEED® mark has been reviewed and accepted for the program’s purposes, and the companies that sell them are licensed by the Department of War.
Acceptance applies to devices, not to kits
Every tourniquet and hemostatic dressing in a STOP THE BLEED® kit has been reviewed and accepted by the program, and the kits themselves are licensed by the Department of War to carry the STOP THE BLEED® mark. No kit from any seller is “government approved” or “government certified”; no such designation exists. If a seller makes that claim, look more closely.