“I was pretty confident he would have bled out,” Roberts said.
He thought back to his training. Not the lessons about weapons or crowd or traffic control he could turn to during a typical shift as a police officer. Instead, Roberts remembered a trip he took a few years earlier with others from his department to Penn State Health Holy Spirit Medical Center.Paramedics later told him that’s what saved the boy’s life.
Roberts is one of millions of people of all stripes ? from high school students to attorneys – who have received a special emergency training called Stop the Bleed. It takes 90 minutes and consists of a presentation and hands-on-work. And those who take it can make all the difference in the crucial minutes between when someone is hurt and when it’s too late.Any moment can turn dire, said Kim Patil, injury prevention and outreach coordinator at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
A tourniquet is attached to a belt in a sheath.
East Pennsboro Township police officers like Sgt. Matt Roberts keep tourniquets like this one on their duty belts.
“These are every day events,” said Patil, who has been teaching Stop the Bleed courses for years. “They aren’t just huge, mass casualty events. This can be someone working with a lawnmower or in a workshop. When you think about how it can happen anywhere, it just makes sense for everybody to get this training.That’s why health care organizations like the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Holy Spirit Medical Center are seeking to train as many people as possible. Sunny Goodyear, injury prevention and outreach coordinator at Holy Spirit, visits local high schools and other spots in the area to show people how to manage what most hope they’ll never encounter. She’s taught 8,000 people about Stop the Bleed since 2018.
First, make sure you’re not in harm’s way, Patil and Goodyear said. Have someone call 9-1-1, and then determine if it’s a life-threatening bleed. That’ll be obvious. “It’ll be something you won’t forget,” Patil said. “We’re talking about a lot of blood.”
Next, look for a trauma first aid kit. If you can’t find one, find a clean cloth and apply direct, steady pressure on the wound. Squeamish? If you know this about yourself, stick with something you can do well, Patil suggests. “Be the person who dials 9-1-1,” she said.
If you have a Stop the Bleed kit, more options become available. These trauma kits are becoming easier to find. Holy Spirit has distributed 922 bleed control kits, which contain essentials to stem blood loss in an accident, to schools, factories, shopping malls and other sites throughout five counties in central Pennsylvania. Look for them in the same places where you find an automated external defibrillator. Other Stop the Bleed aficionados keep kits in their cars.
