AR 500 Body Armor! Testudo Body Armor!

testudo plate carrier and body armor from AR 500 today on tac med TV hey folks my name is Steve and welcome to TAC med TV today we're going to talk about the testudo and I hope I'm pronouncing that right the testudo plate carrier and body armor system from AR 500 this is something that I've been looking at for a while we believe we're going to be looking at getting these for the EMTs and paramedics that work at my service to have on the trucks in case of an active shooter hostile environment type of scenario unfortunately the world's just getting to a point where we've got to start making those considerations and start thinking about this stuff and putting body armor on the trucks it's something that I've been wanting to do for a long time I know our directors been wanting to do it for a long time so we're finally moving that direction and we're going to get that done I do believe but this fist is also something I'm looking at for us on SWAT it's maybe another tool in the toolbox now I don't necessarily want to get rid of our heavy vests that we have but I would like to have the opportunity to have something that's a little bit lighter a little bit smaller that doesn't restrict movement as much and gives us a little added mobility because some of those situations that we find ourselves in it's nice to have that ability to move a little bit better so anyway going forward this is the testudo plate carrier I've got some armor plates in here right now I'm not going to tell you know say what type of armor plates that we've got any they are our AR 500 plates but I'm not going to talk about the stopping capability or anything like that I will however put a link in the description below to their website so you can look at this particular piece of equipment and one of the reasons I'm not going to go into the capabilities of plates that are in this particular piece is because they have several different options so if this is something that you're looking for for yourself you know personally or you your department is starting to look at stuff like this and you want to recommend something like this or you yourself or somebody that can make that purchase for your service and you're looking at something like this go to their website and actually kit it out yourself with what you want and they can make that happen for you okay there's some good folks over there so real quick I want to tell you too I'm not getting any compensation from ar500 for this video you guys know that watch the channel I'm a non-monetized channel right now I don't make any money off any of the videos I do or get any money from the products that I do an overview of or if I happen to do a review I don't get any money for anything like that so you can rest assured that I'm you're getting my squared away honest opinion on a piece of kit because of that reason I'm not getting paid to do it I'm doing it just because I want to so anyway let's talk about the the vest here the carrier system some of the features on this of course you see that the whole thing the whole front of it is Molly the sides are Molly and even the back is Molly now the bank does have the carry strap the carry handle right here to where if somebody is wearing this fist and they're incapacitated you can reach and grab them and you'll be able to drag them with this drag handle hopefully so anyway that's kind of how that is set up you've got the padding up here on the shoulders which is really nice it's thick and padded it wears well on the shoulders it doesn't dig into your shoulders like some other vests and plate carrier systems that I've seen this is actually very comfortable to wear all right now moving forward I'll real quick I'll tell you this ID tag did not come with the vest this is something that I had on my own that I put on here just to kind of show what we're using it for so anyway to put this vest on right here you see we've got some tabs here we'll open that up just this way just like that and that opens up to where you can get to the cummerbund you see these tabs and then you just open it up that way okay now as far as the cummerbund the sides here you'll notice there's a pouch here and this is for the side body armor okay so you can get something on your side you're not just open over here you've got something on your side to protect you over here alright so right now I don't have plates in that that is something that's going to be coming that they're gonna be a heavy recommendation to the boss when when and if we decide to go to this product so a weight comes off this way and lift this up again comes off this way now on the interior here you've got some other cummerbund straps that just lock into place right here no hard to work one-handed so they just come upon it's a good heavy metal astok buckle lock those into place and then you're good to go ahead and fasten the velcro answer your cummerbund all right so anyway let's put this on real quick it's very simple I'll try not to screw the sound up too much while I'm doing this try not to rub up against the microphone too much so first thing you want to do is if you don't have a compadre that can help you do this reach back find the one with the buckle make sure you fasten those first come around here same thing fasten the buckles make sure they're good get yourself adjusted a little bit make sure your plate and plate carriers riding about where you want the ride where it feels comfortable for you all right then you'll lift this lip once again alright bring that around just like that bring your other end of your cummerbund around just like that flap it down you're good to go alright once you get this on it actually feels really good got good chest expansion so if you are having to move or you're having to do a lot of work a lot of physical stuff at this point you're able to breathe in this vest so you're not it's not constricting on you so when you start deep breathing because you're putting in work it's not going to restrict that and it's not going to wear you out any faster okay the other thing is the interior of this vest let's go ahead and show that let's go ahead and show the interior of this vest this is one of the features that I really like alright so the interior I'm gonna show it upside down here the interior is this mesh padded mesh and it feels really good to wear it's comfortable it's the same kind of mesh that's on the the shoulder shoulder pads up here it makes it feel better when you're wearing it it doesn't feel clunky it feels a lot more comfortable because you've got that padding there plus with the mesh the way it's set up its able to breathe air is able to get in there and circulate so you don't get as hot and sweaty underneath the vest with our heavy vests when you've been wearing them for a while you can definitely tell it because you're starting to carry all that heat under there and you start to sweat you start to get wet and your armor gets wet your clothes get wet and that's a concern especially in cold environments if you're working with the team and you're doing working rest cycles then that's a concern when their torso is soaking wet from wearing the body armor and it's 30 degrees outside okay so you're gonna have to have somewhere for your people to go and warm up and so they don't develop hypothermia because just because they didn't wearing their vest so anyway so that's another one of the features I really like the the cumberbund itself the outside cummerbund I guess we'll call it it has an adjustment and I'll show this this has us has a slide through right here on the bottom part of the the plate carrier and that's how you put the the cumberbund into place but if you need to extend it out to wear the cummerbund fits better this is how you do it you just pull it out and you get to this right here and that's how you adjust it out it's just a straight up bungee cord kind of thing with a little cord keeper on it and you just extend that however you need to until it fits you properly all right well with that being said folks I mean realistically this is a very simple piece of kit it's a simple vest it carries plates that hopefully will deflect or stop any incoming rounds that are coming your way so that's pretty much it that's all I've got for it I think it is going to be a good piece of kit I think it's something that moving forward we're definitely going to want on the trucks and probably we're going to adopt these into the SWAT team as well or at least the medics are again that's been all I've got if you all have any questions concerns comments or complaints please put them in the comments section below again I'll put a link to a r500 and specifically this vest system in the description below so you guys can check that out also I'll have two more links down there for the tech med TV t-shirts that I want you to check out and then there's another link there for some second-amendment year that I've been been producing as well so if you want to go check those out that'd be cool too again if you're new to the channel and you've never been here before I've got a bunch of other videos that cover a lot of different topics from straight-up gear reviews to some actual medical information stuff if you're a tactical medic and you're looking to catch that stuff that kind of falls between the truck falls between the cracks because everything in our world is not just trauma care alright there's a lot of primary medicine and preventative care that goes in there as well so anyway that's all I've got for you today thank you so much for stopping by and checking us out appreciate it videos are gonna be a little sporadic moving forward I'll get them out when I can I've got some heavy stuff going on right now but I'll get videos out as quick as I can and as often as I can I promise so anyway leave me a comment in the section below let me know what you think with any questions or anything again I'll put the put the subscribe button over here somewhere sprinkle some more videos around you guys check them out let me know what you think but for now my name is Steve with tech med TV telling you guys to stay safe

Channel: TacMed TV

Views: 7,731

Keywords: TacMed TV, tacmedtv, tactical medic, TEMS, tactical emergency medical support, body armor, emt, paramedic, active shooter, hostile environment, ar 500, testudo, ems, emergency medical services, police, law enforcement, firefighter, fire department, first respponder, bullet proof vest, plate carrier, armor, ar500 armor, ar500 body armor, body armour, personal armor, armour, gear review

Id: 6uYP0mkmONU

Length: 11min 4sec (664 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 11 2020