“Stop the Bleed” – One Sure Step to Lessen Shooting Deaths.
We have long encouraged employers and schools to add a basic Trauma/Stop the Bleeding kit and provide the approximately one-hour of additional first aid training to interested employees.
Stop the Bleed is an effort by the American College of Surgeons and numerous other groups to expand battlefield lessons that have saved soldiers shot to employers, schools and the public. The effort flows from the 2013 Hartford Consensus.
As of the May 2019 Progress Report, 49,186 instructors and 848,090 individuals had been trained. An amazing achievement, but far from enough.
Some professionals have estimated that as many as 80% of domestic shooting victims could have been saved by swift trauma response.
How to Start,
Stop the Bleed kits are available on Amazon, at REI and from dozens of online retailers.
We suggest as a first step that you check the nonprofit Stop the Bleed organization/BleedingControl.org, which has kits available at https://controlbleedingkits.com/.
Resources are available at the Bleedingcontrol.org site, including PPTs and flow charts.
Bleedingcontrol.org also has a page listing classes throughout the U.S.
The Red Cross has classes for First Aid for Severe Bleeding.
Check also the Department of Homeland Security for materials and availability of training.
We’ll continue to wrestle with developing strategies to prevent mass shootings, but this is a step that any employer can easily implement.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.