Thomas Rader

Isolated Stations Do Not Make Recovery Pros. Pressure Under Real Conditions Does. If you want to know whether somebody can actually run a vehicle recovery when it matters, do not watch them perform a clean skill at a quiet station with no clock running and nobody breathing down their neck. Watch them do it hot, …

Welcome back to Front Line Friday.This week is a gear week, and the topic is medical gear an individual patrol officer can carry on the body to extend capability in the minutes before EMS arrives.Front Line Friday is brought to you by Dead Air Silencers, whose support keeps this column going every week.

What belongs in a patrol vehicle trauma kit beyond the issued IFAK, how to organize it for access under stress, and the consumable rotation discipline that keeps it functional when it matters.Welcome back to Front Line Friday.This week is a gear week, and the topic is the in-car trauma kit: specifically, the gap between what agencies issue as a personal IFAK and what a well-configured vehicle-based trauma kit actually looks like when it needs to support a mass casualty or multi-patient scenario.

The data on how officers actually get hurt, and why the calls that look harmless are the ones that need better preparation.Welcome back to Front Line Friday.This week is an editorial, and the topic is the language officers use to describe the work, specifically the language that makes the work more dangerous.

Long guns, medical gear, and comms — how you secure it, access it, and maintain it determines whether your vehicle is an asset or a liability when the call comes.Front Line Friday is a weekly column on duty-grade realities for first responders.Welcome back to Front Line Friday.This week is a gear week, and the topic is one of the most underprogrammed areas of patrol equipment: what goes in the car, how it’s secured, and how maintenance is handled between inspections.The patrol vehicle is where m

Passing the qual and being ready to shoot are not the same thing.Most agencies have built their training calendar around one and called it the other.Front Line Friday is a weekly column on duty-grade realities for first responders.Welcome back to Front Line Friday.This week is an editorial, and the topic is one that tends to produce uncomfortable agreement when it comes up among training officers and rangemasters: range qualification, as it’s practiced in most agencies, measures compliance more

What you carry every shift, what you actually use, and what the cumulative cost looks like after a decade on the job.Front Line Friday is a weekly column on duty-grade realities for first responders.Welcome back to Front Line Friday.If you've worked a full shift in a duty belt and gone home with your lower back tighter than your range schedule, this week is for you.Front Line Friday is brought to you by Dead Air Silencers, whose support keeps this column running every week.

Hemorrhage control isn’t about looking tactical.It’s about buying minutes until definitive care arrives—and sustaining the skills to make those minutes count.Welcome back to Week 3.This series is about what actually works on real calls, in real agencies, with real constraints.Front Line Friday is brought to you by Dead Air Silencers. As always, the content here stays independent and focused on practical outcomes.

At SHOT Show 2026, where tourniquets and trauma kits are nothing new, it takes something genuinely different to stop you mid-aisle. One of those moments came while talking with Coreleader Biotech, an international medical technology company out of Taiwan that is approaching hemorrhage control from a fundamentally different angle. Coreleader Biotech has developed a bleed-control …

“Ask Doc” is a new series we are contemplating where we will answer questions from you, the readers. Topics will be answered by staff writers with significant experience in the field and tactical medicine. Submit your questions to [email protected]…

Everyone should have a well-stocked medical kit. More-so, I think that all gun owners should have, at the very least, a small kit to deal with the injuries they have an increased chance of encountering. We all enjoy watching YouTube videos of “people…

This beginner’s guide teaches you how to use an emergency tourniquet while busting some of the worst myths about their use. The skills apply to any off-the-shelf product, but we focus on the top models experts recommend in our prepper tourniquet…

A tourniquet (or two) is an important part of your emergency kit. Most people think of breath and heartbeat as the primary elements in a sudden medical trauma, but severe bleeding (“hemorrhaging”) is the other critical part you don’t often see in…

Learn what medical supplies expert preppers keep stocked in their homes. [See the full post at: Home medical supplies list]

This prioritized guide covers the medical supplies you should keep in your home for situations ranging from daily-life boo boos to long-term “we’re on our own” emergencies. This guide covers the medical supplies you should keep in your home for…

Experts with over 180 years of combined medical experience present this first aid kit checklist for your EDC (Everyday Carry), IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit), and emergency go-bags. The best first aid kits are made, not bought in one package, so…

A chest seal is one of the most important pieces of medical gear you should have in your emergency preps. Thankfully, the best chest seals are compact, lightweight, easy to use, effective, and affordable. Your chest cavity depends on a closed vacuum…

A pressure dressing is one of the most important “someone’s really hurt!” medical products you should have in your preps because major bleeding can’t wait for help. Well-aimed direct pressure is always the best way to handle bleeding, and the…

From simple injuries to a cut off fingertip to a bullet wound with severe hemorrhaging, civilians with a little bit of bleeding control knowledge can have a big impact on survival chances in an emergency. That’s why the U.S. government has heavily…

Many people learn how to stitch (suture), staple, glue, or otherwise close a wound because they imagine an emergency situation where the only chance of survival is a MacGyver surgery hack with a fishing needle and dental floss. It’s one of those…