Saving Local Kids from Bleeding Out

Following up on yesterday's post on Arming Teachers Locally, today the N-G highlighted some active shooter programs that had already been in the works before the Parkland massacre:

In continuing coverage of how our community has been preparing for active shooters and training school staff to stop catastrophic blood loss in our children when it occurs — because that's a thing we do now — the News-Gazette lays out the Stop the Bleed Campaign as part of their active shooter protocols:

Critical Care: Over 1,200 school workers learn how to stop the bleed
Even before the latest school shooting tragedy last month in Florida, some local school staffs had begun arming themselves with training they hope they never have to use — how to stop life-threatening bleeding.

Instruction under a national campaign called Stop the Bleed has been under way for East Central Illinois schools since the start of last year.

While some schools have also undergone ALICE active shooter response training, Stop the Bleed teaches a medical response that bystanders can use to save lives in the critical first minutes after a trauma injury that causes bleeding.

Carle Foundation Hospital’s trauma department is offering Stop the Bleed training to schools in a 21-county area of East Central Illinois, with a hope that those they teach will pass on what they learn to other school district employees and students.

Carle chose to start the training with schools because schools have been a top target in active shooter episodes, according to Dr. Henry Moore, Carle trauma services medical director and chairman of a trauma committee covering the multi-county region...

White recalled learning at her training how to do a quick assessment of a bleeding victim and distinguish whether bleeding is coming from a vein or artery. Arterial bleeds are more critical, and people with these wounds should be stabilized first, she said.

This instruction also drove home the importance of people on the front line of a tragedy being prepared to know what to do before the ambulance arrives, White said.

“A person can bleed out within five minutes,” she said.

School nurses in Champaign and Urbana school districts have also undergone this training. Unit 4 schools spokeswoman Emily Schmit said Stop the Bleed kits have been received by all Champaign schools, and there’s a desire to share the training the district’s lead nurse administrator, Margee Poole, received with other school staff, Schmit said.

ALICE has an "age appropriate" book, and probably not the best pictures on its blog to ease concerns.

More on ALICE here.

More on the Stop the Bleed Campaign as part of the Hartford Consensus active shooter recommendations after Sandy Hook here.