POCONO SUMMIT — Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono is teaming up with local law enforcement agencies to help keep officers and civilians safe.
One of the departments to receive the equipment donation was Pocono Mountain Regional Police Department, and Sergeant Scott Dunlap said it could be the difference between life and death.
“They’re learning more and more about the effectiveness of these things," Dunlap said. "It’s not like the old Civil War days where you’re wrapping a cloth and a stick around. These are very, very effective."
Tourniquets are used in trauma situations to limit or stop the flow of blood to a particular part of the body. Dunlap said that they are extremely important because a person can bleed to death in less than five minutes.
Staff from the hospital’s emergency department spent Monday distributing and providing additional training to officers at the Pocono Mountain Regional Police Department. The event was open to officers from any department from the region.
“We want to support our local departments and give them the equipment necessary to begin to stop the bleeding before they are transported to the trauma center. This is life-saving equipment that we hope they will never have to use but if they need to, we will all be ready,” said David Scaff, trauma surgeon and director of LVH-Pocono’s trauma program.
According to Dunlap, officers from Pocono Mountain Regional mandates training and that officers carry a tourniquet on them for emergencies, but other officers from other departments often have to buy their own or go without them.
For officers with Pocono Mountain, the donation means that they can now carry two and be prepared in the event an officer and a civilian are both injured during an emergency.
“We have real situations in this department where officers have applied a tourniquet to a gunshot victim and saved his life. So no, it is not just for the officer," Dunlap said. "Yes, the officer carries one primarily for him but now that we have two, we have one for me and one for a citizen if needed."
In November 2017, a Pennsylvania State Trooper saved his own life thanks to a tourniquet and quick thinking. Corporal Scott Kelly was shot in the shoulder/neck region and in the leg during a traffic stop on Route 33 but was able to apply a tourniquet. Kelly was found in critical condition and needed surgery to remove a bullet from his leg but still survived. Captain Richard D'Ambrosio credited the tourniquet with saving the corporal's life.
In total, the hospital will be giving out 200 tourniquets through a $7,000 donation from the Pocono Foundation. The hospital gave out 150 during the Monday event and has plans to distribute the remaining tourniquets to other law enforcement agencies throughout the region.