K9 TECC Guidelines Approved by Committee for Tactical Emergency Casualty Care

At the Committee for Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (C-TECC) business meeting conducted at George Mason University in Washington, DC, on December 13, 2016, Dr. Lee Palmer advocated for C-TECC approval of the K9 Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (K9 TECC) guidelines that were developed by the K9 TECC Working Group.

"Approval of the K9 TECC guidelines is a great accomplishment toward enhancing prehospital care for injured OpK9s," says Palmer, who serves on the C-TECC Board of Advisors, as well as serving as co-lead for the K9 TECC Working Group.

In 2014, the K9 TECC working group was initiated under the auspices of C-TECC with the intent of developing best practice recommendations for out-of-hospital K9 casualty care and eliminating preventable LODDs in operational K9s exposed to high-threat or tactical environments.

K9 TECC principles are meant to be flexible, thus allowing TEMS units, law enforcement agencies and SAR teams to adapt the principles to any particular operational task or situational threat. Since the principles are modeled from human TECC, K9 TECC should be easily learned and applied by first responders.  

The K9 TECC guidelines, as well as other resources, are available on the K9 TECC website at www.k9tecc.org/resources.html.

You may also read more about K9 TECC at https://www.emsworld.com/article/12246334/an-introduction-to-k9-tactical-emergency-casualty-care.