The campaign is meant to educate bystanders on how to stop bleeding in the critical minutes between an injury and the arrival of emergency medical personnel. Alison Dirr/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
NEENAH - When someone's bleeding heavily, the moments before emergency medical responders arrive are critical.
From shootings to train derailments, car crashes to everyday falls, members of the public could be in a position to save a life — if only they know how.
"The help given by an immediate responder can often make the difference between life and death, even before professional rescuers arrive," said David Schultz, the new medical director of trauma at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center-Neenah.
With this in mind, the hospital's trauma center announced Wednesday that it is launching a public initiative to teach bystanders to "stop the bleed." The press conference included a presentation and hands-on training for members of the local media, who are often some of the first to arrive at scenes.
The central principles for those responding to these situations are:
- Ensuring your own safety
- Calling 911
- Finding the bleeding injury
- Stopping the bleeding by covering the wound with a clean cloth and applying pressure with both hands, using a tourniquet or filling the wound with gauze or clean cloth then applying pressure.
Schultz said, the goal is not sterility — it's stopping the bleeding.
He said arm and leg injuries are the most frequent causes of preventable death from injuries.
The free classes will be open to all members of the public starting Feb. 8. The trauma center also plans to train workers from local music festivals, EAA AirVenture, schools and businesses. A list of bleeding control classes and registration is available at ThedaCare.org/classes.
The classes teach how to apply pressure to a wound, apply dressing while still applying pressure and how to use tourniquets to slow blood loss. This is part of a nationwide initiative to teach bystanders to stop bleeding on extremities during a mass-casualty situation. More information is available on https://www.bleedingcontrol.org/.
The program also aims to put basic medical supplies such as padding and tourniquets in public buildings next to AEDs so bystanders can quickly help victims.
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Such bystander efforts can reduce the odds that the injured person goes into shock, decrease complications and help them be in a better condition when trained medical responders arrive.
This kind of training for laypeople is extremely important because they're often the first on scene, said Nick Romenesko, clinical and quality manager at Gold Cross Ambulance Service. An appropriately placed tourniquet can control bleeding almost immediately, he said.
"When there's a life-threatening bleeding incident, we want to see those interventions already done because it means the patient is going to be in so much better condition than they would have been if they didn't have a tourniquet or wound packing done on them," Romenesko said.
When the public thinks of stopping bleeding, gunshots and stab wounds come to mind, he said, but this knowledge comes into play in myriad everyday situations. He said recently a woman fell and ended up needing a tourniquet placed on her arm.
Romenesko encouraged the public to get the training and said stopping bleeding is a simple process once someone has done it a few times.
"It's the same as hands-only CPR," he said. "The first few times you learn it you might be a little intimidated by the process but after you do it a few times you're going to get comfortable with what it really takes to stop bleeding and understand that it's simple, it's quick and it's effective."