Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC)

Developed by NAEMT’s Prehospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) Committee, the TECC program is based on the guidelines from the Committee on Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (Co-TECC) and the Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) program. TECC uses lessons learned from our military and applies them to the civilian world of tactical medicine.

This 16-hour course covers topics designed to decrease preventable death in the tactical situation. Topics include: Hemorrhage control; surgical airway control and needle decompression; strategies for treating wounded responders in threatening environments; caring for pediatric patients; and techniques for dragging and carrying victims to safety.

At the core of the TECC program are three distinct phases that have been well-proven by TCCC-trained personnel in the war against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. The phases are as follows:

Direct Threat Care
Care that is rendered while under attack or in adverse conditions.
Indirect Threat Care
Care that is rendered while the threat has been suppressed, but may resurface at any point.
Evacuation
Care that is rendered while the casualty is being evacuated from the incident site.
TECC focuses on the medicine during these phases of care and provides guidelines for managing trauma in the civilian tactical or hazardous environment. While TECC has a tactical slant, it takes an all-hazards approach to providing care outside the normal operating conditions of most EMS agencies, such as responding to a mass casualty or active shooter event.

Lead Instructor:

Crecencio “VAL” Valenzuela is the founder of and current Lead instructor for Spent Brass Training Solutions, LLC. Val is currently a NAEMT Affiliate Faculty member, Course coordinator and Instructor for Tactical Combat Casualty care in California. As a former High Threat Security Contractor for an exceedingly reputable Private Security Company in Iraq, Val has provided Close Protection (CP) as a Personal Security Detail (PSD) member, and also the team medic as he holds a National Registry for Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and U.S. Army Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC).
Val has been a Lead Tactics and Weapons instructor to not only other PSD teammates and teams, but to Expats and Third Country Nationals of the host country’s nation as well. A combat veteran with the U.S. Army Infantry (1st AD & 3rd ID), Chris served 5 and half years with multiple combat and NATO tours to include Macedonia, Kosovo and Iraq. While on active duty in the Infantry as a fire team leader, Val was a weapons and tactics instructor at the company level. Val also has time spent as a civilian military weapons and tactics based instructor for Federal, State and Local entities. Current Staff Instructor for Suarez International Inc., Affiliate Staff instructor for Phokus Research Group and ZERT.