Report: Majority Of Americans Would Jump At Chance To Rip Off Shirt And Use It As Tourniquet

WASHINGTON—According to a report released Tuesday by the American Red Cross, approximately 90% of Americans would eagerly seize an opportunity to stanch the flow of blood from an injured person’s limb by tearing off their own shirt and using it as a makeshift tourniquet. “Our findings demonstrate that, upon spotting a profusely bleeding victim, nine out of 10 Americans wouldn’t think twice about removing their T-shirt—or, alternatively, ripping the arm off their dress shirt—tying it into a loop, and tightening it above the wound using a stick they found lying on the ground,” said the report’s author Deanna Fulmer, adding that most of the population would not hesitate to use their teeth to tear off the needed length of fabric while telling the victim to “Hang in there, buddy.” “Whether they saw themselves doing it for a critically injured hiker they had found on a remote mountain trail, an unconscious friend they had just pulled out of a car accident, or to prevent themselves from going into shock because of a deep gash in their arm, our subjects said they would ‘absolutely’ improvise a blood-vessel compression device out of their own clothes should they find themselves in a situation that demanded it.” The report comes on the heels of a study last year that found the vast majority of Americans are primed and ready at all times to yank an elderly person out of the way of an oncoming bus.