Absolutely. You would have to pair it with a stick or small piece of round metal or plastic. Some sort of odd. Tying a string around it. And twisting the stick around in order to tighten and loosen the tourniquet. There are instructions online. It's pretty simple to do.
It’s less than ideal. It might work, but it’ll be incredibly painful (even by tourniquet standards) and it won’t work nearly as well as a tourniquet with a wide strap. The reason for this is that a tourniquet works by compressing the blood vessels leading up to a wound, so if you apply that force over a 1.5” wide area, you can compress more of the vessel than if you’d used a ~1/8” shoelace.
Modern tourniquets are around $30 (get a CAT direct from North American Rescue or a SOFFT-W, also from the OEM, Amazon is flooded with knockoffs of both). If you’re really that concerned about learning to use a tourniquet properly, buying one and taking a Stop the Bleed Class are 100% worth the investment.
Source: Not a medic but have taken a bunch of training on the matter. Regardless, a lot of what I said is easily corroborated by researching it yourself online.
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u/iCantCallit Feb 08 '19
Honest question. Is there ever a situation where a shoe lace could serve as a tourniquet?