Catastrophic Bleeding in Sport

Catastrophic bleeding is external bleeding that can kill within minutes, and it is controlled before anything else, with firm direct pressure, then a tourniquet or haemostatic dressing.

That is why UK guidance puts life-threatening bleeding ahead of the structured assessment, and why the sequence is often written as catastrophic haemorrhage, airway, breathing, circulation, disability, exposure.

It is rare in sport but not absent: a stud through a thigh, a skate blade, a fall onto glass or metal, a bike at speed into railings. These injuries are survivable if the bleeding stops in the first minutes.

Blood-borne virus exposure and the blood rule sit on Blood-Borne Virus Exposure in Sport, and what belongs in the bag, and who should use it, on The Pitchside Medical Bag.