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Stop the bleed and save a life

Contributed photo Kim Elder, Marshall County emergency management director, Robin Lillianthal, MCC provost and Ben Veren Marshall County sheriff’s deputy show some of the Stop the Bleed kits demonstrated Monday at a training session at Marshalltown Community College.

The more people who know how to control bleeding in an injured patient, the better and Marshalltown Emergency Management is providing training called “Stop the Bleed.”

Director Kim Edler said a 1B Healthcare Coalition grant allowed her office to do a series of training sessions in the county school systems during the past three years.

She estimates that the county has more than 30 people who have been trained to lead a Stop the Bleed class.

“We purchased the kits and the training was fit to the individual school and grade level,” Edler said. “In some cases it was the entire staff, in others the school nurse and in yet others just enough to get the younger students to know what it is that they are asking their teacher for if the need arises.”

Stating that response time is critical in a life-threatening bleeding situation, Edler said, “The more we can teach citizens enough to help others in and emergency situation, the better chance we have in saving a life.”

Uncontrolled bleeding is the number one cause of preventable death from trauma, according to the American College of Surgeons.

In the summer of 2017, the Iowa Department of Public Health implemented the Stop the Bleed campaign in Iowa.

In April 2013, a few months after the active shooter event at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the Joint Committee to Create a National Policy to Enhance Survivability from Intentional Mass Casualty and Active Shooter Events was convened by the American College of Surgeons. This was done in collaboration with the medical community and representatives from the federal government, the National Security Council, the military, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and governmental and non-governmental emergency medical response organizations.

The committee was formed to create a protocol for national policy to enhance survivability from active shooter and intentional mass casualty events.

In October 2015, the White House launched a national awareness campaign called Stop the Bleed. The campaign serves as a call to action to encourage bystanders to become trained, equipped and empowered to help in a bleeding emergency before professional help arrives.

Some tips to stop the bleed are:

• Ensure that you and the person you are helping are safe.

• Call 911 and get help as soon as possible.

• Wear gloves to avoid blood-borne infections.

• Use a tourniquet in a life threatening bleed, or pack the wound with gauze or a clean cloth and applying direct pressure with both hands. This creates compression on a blood vessel.

Life threatening bleeding is defined as:

• Blood spurting, pooling on the ground or will not stop coming out of a wound.

• Clothing and bandages that are soaked with blood.

• Loss of all or part of a limb.

• Bleeding in a victim who is confused or unconscious.

Diane Williams, the executive officer for the Bureau of Emergency Services with the Iowa Department of Health said the Stop the Bleed class is an important one for everyone to take.

“It is basic first aid, but it is also the knowledge that can help a person to be able to save a life,” she said. “Especially in weather like we are having, or in rural areas, time is needed for paramedics and EMTs to reach the patient in some cases. A person can bleed to death in less than five minutes and sometimes it takes a lot longer for help to arrive.”

Williams said there are about 1,800 trained instructors in the Stop the Bleed campaign in Iowa, and by contacting the Iowa Department of Public Health website or by phone a class can be set up in Marshall County.

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