About the Authors

David Häske

Affiliation Faculty of Medicine, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Tuebingen, Germany

Stefan K. Beckers

Affiliations Department of Anesthesiology, University Hospital RWTH, Aachen, Aachen, Germany, Emergency Medical Service, Fire Department, City of Aachen, Aachen, Germany

Marzellus Hofmann

Affiliation Faculty of Health, University of Witten/Herdecke, Witten, Germany

Rolf Lefering

Affiliation Institute for Research in Operative Medicine, University of Witten/Herdecke, Cologne, Germany

Bernhard Gliwitzky

Affiliation Megamed Emergency Management GbR, Annweiler, Germany

Christoph C. Wölfl

Affiliation Department of Orthopedics, Trauma Surgery and Sports Traumatology, Hospital Hetzelstift, Neustadt, Germany

Paul Grützner

Affiliation Department of Trauma and Orthopedic Surgery, BG Trauma Centre Ludwigshafen, Ludwigshafen, Germany

Ulrich Stöckle

Affiliation Department of Traumatology and Reconstructive Surgery, BG Hospital Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany

Marc Dieroff

Affiliation Fire Service, Emergency Preparedness and Crisis Management, City of Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden, Germany

Matthias Münzberg

matthias.muenzberg@bgu-ludwigshafen.de

Affiliation Department of Trauma and Orthopedic Surgery, BG Trauma Centre Ludwigshafen, Ludwigshafen, Germany

Competing Interests

BG, CW, DH, MM, MD are PHTLS instructors. Author BG received funding in the form of salary from Megamed Emergency Management GbR, a commercial company. This company offers different trainings for health care personnel. Megamed does not offer PHTLS-courses and has not funded or supported our trial in any way. Mr. Gliwitzky is not paid by Megamed to take part at this trial. The funders have no influence on study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: DH MM BG CW. Data curation: DH. Formal analysis: DH RL MM SB MH. Funding acquisition: DH BG. Investigation: DH MM BG SB MH CW. Methodology: DH RL SB MH. Project administration: DH BG MD. Supervision: MM US PG. Writing – original draft: DH MM SB MH. Writing – review & editing: DH SB MH RL BG CW PG US MD MM.