Category: Featured in

From a fellow ED Doctor, Luke Kennedy, who lives the reality of treating shark bites comes an insightful, honest and glowing review on Tracks Mag of the Calm As… Shark Bite Slam Pack.

In their recent article, Shark Attach First Aid Slam Pack, Australia Wide First Aid takes a deep dive into the movie and historical lore of shark attacks.

They look at what types of sharks bite who, plus some very useful tips on dealing with the various aspects of shark attacks.

They also take some time to talk to Dr Jon Cohen about his new Calm As…Shark Bite First Aid Slam Pack. He succinctly sums up the value of having the kit on hand the next time you hit the surf.

You can bleed out from an amputated limb in under 5 minutes. Bleeding needs to be stopped ASAP.

“It’s the simplest thing you can do,” says Dr Cohen, “to save someone’s life.”

The kit is designed for immediate action to achieve just one goal: stop the victim bleeding out.

Beach Grit broke the story on the surfer killed by suspected great white at Kelpies, Esperance; the same beach teenage surfer killed by great white in 2017 and where surfer lost both arms to great white in 2014.

He talks to Dr Jon Cohen who knows hits by Great Whites in Esperance are a new reality.

“I know some guys who were in the ED that day (Laeticia Brouwer was killed) and it was a traumatic experience to manage. Cases like that are preventable deaths. People can act on the beach if they’re there when it happens. It might be scary to talk about but it’s reassuring to know that there is something you can do and it’s not complicated.”

As part of Magic Seaweed’s Surf Doctor series, SA local Craig Jarvis has been tapping up the world’s best surfing doctors on what to do in some of the most dire situations you, or a friend, might find themselves in.

In his article How To Survive a Shark Attack, Craig interview’s Dr Jon Cohen and tackles some critical scenarios such as:

• What is the biggest misconception when it comes to a shark bite and immediate treatment?
• What are the biggest mistakes when dealing with on-the-spot shark bites?
• Minor bite, lots of blood and drama. What do you do?
• Major bite, loss of limb, what do you do?
• Loss of life, massive drama on the beach, what do you do?

The article was also featured on:

• Coastal Watch
• Surfline

The new Calm As… Shark Bite First Aid Slam Pack was just featured on swellnet where an avid and experienced crowd has taken quite an interest.

Dr Jon Cohen of Calm As First Aid Kits was interviewed on Beach Grit following the fatal shark attack of surfer Robin Pedretti on the Gold Coast.

From the article…

A catastrophic attack and your buddy is going to lose consciousness in three minutes; after five minutes the outcomes are poor, says Cohen.

“Once someone goes into hypovolemic shock a cascade of bad things happen in your body. It decreases your chance of survival,” says Cohen. “In all of the tactical combat critical care, in military areas, wherever there’s mass casualties, big shootings, bombs, massive car crashes, the only thing that’s indicated to do before anything else is to get on the tourniquet.”

On asked if being trained in the use of tourniquets is the new CPR.

“There’s still going to be a lot more people during of heart attacks, and that’s true in the surf,” he says, “But if you’re surfing with your family, your kids, some group of buddies, getting the crew together to make sure they know what to do, giving it thought, having a strategy of what to do is part of your risk assessment when surfing sharky spots.”

Dr Jon Cohen of Calm As… was just featured on Beach Grit in their article, No-leg-still-smiling: The $30 device that can save a surfer’s life even after great white hit!

The article discusses an interview with former world number sixteen surfer Mitch Thorson who gave a nod to Jon’s recent “Shark Bite Management Demonstration” at Margaret River.

Having the Calm As First Aid Kit for Surfers reviewed by Swellnet, a major Australian surfing website, was an amazing step for Calm As. It marked the first significant press it’s received. Apart from their kind review, we received some great product feedback from the guys when they ended up putting it to use on an overseas trip.

On the back of the swellnet review, we were approached by the team at BWRAG (Big Wave Risk Assessment Group) about potentially collaborating during their tour down under. We’ll discuss in a separate post just what an amazing experience it was to be invited to teach first aid to a group of legends that included not only the BWRAG faculty (Greg Long, Liam Wilmott, Zeb Walsh) but the other attendees (Tom Carroll, Russell Bierke amongst other local chargers) and fellow guest lecturers (Shannon Worrell and Joe Knight).

The real benefit of the swellnet review was it’s creation of a high visibility forum about Surfer’s First Aid, and the Calm As First Aid Kit for Surfers in particular. We had a lot of opinions from a wide variety of people. Some experienced medics, some hardened Indo travellers. A lot of advice passed on echoed our own thoughts, while other comments and questions allowed us to dig deep and reflect on our own experience, available medical literature, and of course opinions from our network of other Surfing Doctors.

While we continue to grow the stockpile of educational resources we want to release to the surfing public, it’s been amazing to have a growing repository of surf-medic banter being perpetuated on the swellnet chat forum.

Hopefully we’ll have some exciting new product releases for Stu and company to review again in the not too distant future, and the whole review / share / discuss process can get a hard re-boot with an even bigger audience of both viewers and participants.

The launch of the Calm As First Aid Kit for Surfers was recently featured by The Business of Surf in their article – Custom First Aid Kits Launched for Travelling Surfers.