Doctors at Parkland Memorial Hospital have trained more than 4,000 people in an effort to prepare civilians to provide care in mass casualty events.
A person with a life-threatening injury from a car crash or a gun shot can bleed to death in three minutes. On average, it takes five to eight minutes for paramedics to respond to a 911 call.
Serious bleeding from an extremity is the most frequent cause of preventable death from an injury. Life-threatening bleeding warrants immediate interventions and in most cases the person who can provide that immediate care is not a trained healthcare provider or first responder.
Everyone can become equipped to save lives by learning how to put apply a tourniquet. The training takes minutes, but can make a huge difference when every second counts.
After 64-year-old Stephen Paddock fired shots into a crowd of people at a concert in Las Vegas, the first people to help victims and tend to their wounds were bystanders. According to witnesses, several people began making their own tourniquets by tearing their shirts or using their belts to tie around the wound and stop the bleeding. In most cases, the bleeding does not stop.
The staff of the Rees-Jones Trauma Center at Parkland Memorial Hospital are training civilians with a focus on how to stop the bleeding.
Parkland has trained more than 4,000 people police officers, Boy Scouts, teachers, church leaders and members, corporate groups, employees and most recently all 400 employees at the American Airlines Center. During the class, each person will learn how to apply a tourniquet and each person will leave with trauma kit of their own.
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For more information about Parkland’s “Stop the Bleed’ classes or to request a class be taught at your office, school or agency, email Jorie Klein at stopthebleed@phhs.org.
