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Tourniquets, once controversial, seen as lifesavers in aftermath of Boston Marathon bombings
• NEW YORK (AP) -- As people lay badly bleeding in the smoke of the Boston Marathon bombings, rescuers immediately turned to a millennia-old medical device to save their lives -- the tourniquet.
• Using belts, shirts and other materials, they tied off bleeding limbs in fast-acting bids to prevent major blood loss, shock and death. Such fast work no doubt saved many lives, doctors at Boston area hospitals said.
• So it's interesting to note that if this had happened a decade ago, many emergency responders might have avoided the tourniquet. As recently as the early 2000s, the tourniquet was still enmeshed in a long standing controversy about whether they were more trouble than they were worth.
• "Some people saw them as lifesaving, and others said they were the instrument of the devil," said Dr. John F. Kragh Jr., an orthopedic surgeon with the U.S. Army's Institute of Surgical Research in Texas.
• Although tourniquets have been used to stem blood loss since at least the time of the Roman Empire, modern military surgeons had grown to doubt it. There were no good studies proving their benefit. And there was a common belief that some tourniquets could do more harm than good, cutting off blood and oxygen to limbs and resulting in amputations.
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Spain's legendary purebred horses, once prized acquisitions, now victims of economic bust
• ALMONTE, Spain (AP) -- The southern Spanish region of Andalusia, famed for flamenco and Moorish castles, is also home to a legendary breed of horses that carried conquistadors into battle in the Americas, featured in Hollywood epics and more recently became trophy acquisitions for Spaniards during a giddy economic boom.
• On his grassy ranch in the territory's heartland, 73-year-old Francisco Mesa breeds these "Pura Raza Espanola" -- Pure Spanish Breed -- horses with a passion that comes from years of pampering the elegant beasts known for their intelligence and affection for humans. He enters a muddy pen and is immediately surrounded by mares and foals who nuzzle him with tenderness, oblivious of their almost certain fate: the slaughterhouse.
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