Motivation

In emergency trauma care, uncontrolled bleeding remains a leading cause of preventable death, where every second is critical. Conventional hemostasis methods, such as compression bandages, are often slow, difficult to apply correctly—especially for self-application—and require sustained effort to be effective. This critical delay can be fatal. Our project was motivated by the urgent need for a hemostasis device that is both ultra-fast and intuitive enough for anyone to use under extreme stress. We have developed a novel tourniquet that leverages the mechanical principle of snap-through buckling. By incorporating a bistable "snap band," our design allows a user to achieve immediate and consistent pressure on a wound with a single, simple action. This approach drastically reduces application time to under five seconds, eliminates the complexity of traditional methods, and ensures that life-saving intervention is not just possible, but instant.