Management of open chest wounds in tactical emergency casualty care: application of vented versus nonvented chest seals

Abstract

The 2014 midyear, full meeting of the Committee for Tactical Emergency Combat Care (C-TECC) was hosted by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Law Enforcement Medicine on June 9 and 10 in Baltimore, Maryland. As the C-TECC guidelines are increasingly recognized as the best-practice recommendations for civilian, high-threat, prehospital trauma response, a focused guidelines discussion occurred to develop best-practice recommendations for the management of open chest wounds, specifically regarding the application of vented and nonvented chest seals.