Center for Army Lessons Learned

    101 pages
    For Official Use Only
    REL NATO, GCTF, ISAF, MCFI, ABCA
    August 2013

Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) is the pre-hospital care rendered to a casualty in a tactical, combat environment. The principles of TCCC are fundamentally different from those of traditional civilian trauma care, which is practiced by most medical providers and medics. These differences are based on both the unique patterns and types of wounds that are suffered in combat and the tactical environment medical personnel face in combat. Unique combat wounds and tactical environments make it difficult to determine which intervention to perform at what time. Besides addressing a casualty’s medical condition, responding medical personnel must also address the tactical situation faced while providing casualty care in combat. A medically correct intervention performed at the wrong time may lead to further casualties. Stated another way, “good medicine may be bad tactics,” which can get the rescuer and casualty killed. To successfully navigate these issues, medical providers must have skills and training focused on combat trauma care, as opposed to civilian trauma care.