Posted: 3/2/2023
Course designed to teach community members to save lives until EMS arrives
A person with a life-threatening injury from a car crash or a gunshot wound can bleed to death in three minutes. On average, it takes five to eight minutes for paramedics to respond to a 911 call. But thanks to a class taught by staff of The Rees-Jones Trauma Center at Parkland Memorial Hospital, community members can learn how to recognize life-threatening bleeding and administer appropriate medical treatment before professional rescuers arrive.
Parkland’s Stop the Bleed classes have been adapted from courses including the U.S. Military’s Tactical Combat Casualty Care Guidelines and the Prehospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) course as a part of a large United States Government effort to make “Stop the Bleed” training the CPR of the 21st century.
The course is designed for the public with a focus on controlling bleeding, according to Courtney Edwards, DNP, MPH, RN, CCRN, CEN, TCRN, NEA-BC, Director of Trauma Community Outreach in The Rees-Jones Trauma Center at Parkland.
“This training is important because events such as home injuries, work injuries and motor vehicle trauma can happen at any moment. The threats in our communities such as mass shootings or terrorist-related events such as bombings require all citizens to be always prepared, regardless of where they are. Those precious few minutes can save a life before help arrives,” Edwards said.
Controlling a victim’s bleeding centers on four primary principles: ensuring your own safety, identifying the injury, stopping the bleeding and keeping the victim warm. It’s paramount, Edwards said, to make sure you are safe so that you can help the person losing blood.
“First, direct someone to call 911 or call yourself if no one else is available. Although you may be panicked, it’s important that you keep calm. This keeps the victim calm and enables you to give a clear location and description of the injury to the 911 operator,” Edwards said.
If your safety is threatened, Edwards said, attempt to remove yourself from danger and find a safe location. For example, if you witness a car crash, make sure you are out of the way of oncoming traffic. In addition, protect yourself from blood-borne pathogens by wearing rubber gloves and eye protection, she said.
The class also teaches individuals to recognize life-threatening bleeding and how to control it on various locations on the body using a tourniquet or other measures such as direct pressure and/or wound packing.
“A victim who is bleeding from an artery can die in as little as three minutes,” said Jeffery Metzger, MD, Chief of Emergency Services at Parkland and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “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 in a position to provide immediate care is not a trained healthcare provider or first responder. Everyone can save a life when minutes count.”
Edwards also stressed the importance of having a “Stop the Bleed” bag in your car and home and keeping rubber gloves and goggles handy in case of an emergency. The bags include:
- Tourniquets – three in each bag
- Hemostatic Gauze (Quikclot Combat Gauze) – three in each bag
- CPR mask, one-way valve, EMT grade – two in each bag
- Blanket
- Bottles of water
- Flashlight/batteries
- Glow sticks
“You just never think that something is going to happen to you, a loved one or a friend. That’s why it’s so important to be prepared and when that adrenaline pumps in you instinctively know what to do,” Edwards said. “We encourage everyone to take this class, and we’re more than willing to come to business meetings, community agencies, faith-based organizations and even book clubs. Having the knowledge could ultimately save a life.”
For more information about Parkland’s “Stop the Bleed” classes or to request a class be taught at your office, school or agency, contact Courtney Edwards at stopthebleed@phhs.org. For information about Parkland services, please visit www.parklandhealth.org.