Parkland trauma team helps ‘Stop the Bleed’
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 being 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 and a part of a large, United States Government effort to make “Stop the Bleed” training the CPR of the 21st century.
“This course is designed for the general public with a focus on controlling bleeding,” said Jorie Klein, RN, Director of Trauma Services 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 new threats in our communities such as the mass shootings or terrorist-related events such as bombings require all citizens to be prepared at all times. Those precious few minutes can save a life before help arrives.”
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, Klein said, to make sure you are safe so that you can offer assistance to another.
“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 which keeps the victim calm, and it enables you to give a clear location and description of the injury to the 911 operator,” Klein said.
If your safety is threatened, Klein said ,attempt to remove yourself from danger and find a safe location. For example, if you witness a car crash or one happens in front of your home, 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 Alexander Eastman, MD, Medical Director and Chief of the Rees-Jones Trauma Center at Parkland and Assistant Professor of Surgery 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 who can provide that immediate care is not a trained healthcare provider or first responder. Everyone can save a life when minutes count.”
Klein 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 – 3 in each bag
• Hemostatic Gauze (Quikclot Combat Gauze) – 3 in each bag
• CPR mask, one way valve, EMT grade – 2 in each bag
• Blanket
• Bottles of water
• Flashlight/batteries
• Glow sticks
“I’m a trauma nurse so I have items I need in my car and home, but I also keep a Zip-lock bag in my purse with a tourniquet, gloves and goggles,” she said. “You never know when something will happen. I want to be prepared.”
For more information about Parkland’s “Stop the Bleed” classes or to request a class be taught at your office, school or agency, contact Jorie Klein at stopthebleed@phhs.org.
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