“Stop the Bleed”: Be the help until help arrives

By Claudine Schweber, co-chair, Emergency Preparedness Committee (EPC)

Having Happy Holidays could mean you helped someone stay alive. Did you know that you have the power to help someone from bleeding to death? Yes, you can stop the bleed.

Uncontrolled bleeding is the number one cause of preventable death from trauma. Therefore, the sooner severe bleeding is controlled, the greater the chance someone has of surviving. The “Stop the Bleed” training program was created by the American College of Surgeons, federal agencies and military personnel in the aftermath of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting to train community members to enhance survival after mass casualties and active shooter events.

This training has been attended by emergency preparedness persons, police and fire departments, high school students, and community members. The campaign to spread the awareness and training about basic actions to stop life-threatening bleeding continues so that the members of the public can take action and make a difference in the case of every day emergencies, shootings, and natural and man-made disasters. Advances in military medicine and research in hemorrhage control provide the basis of the information in the training course. For more information, visit www.bleedingcontrol.org.

What can we in Takoma Park do? Take the one-hour training course on how you can control severe bleeding offered by The Takoma Park Emergency Preparedness Committee. This course offers a video plus hands on experience in the ABC’s of bleeding control: A – Alert, B – find the Bleeding injury; C – Compression (apply pressure). And of course, call 911.

This article appeared in the December 2018 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.