Cleveland, OH,
02
April
2018
|
11:05 AM
America/New_York

Learn to Stop The Bleed (and save a life)

3-28-2018 Stop the Bleed

Modern medicine is sophisticated. But saving lives in the crucial moments after a traumatic injury still comes down to the basics -- one basic in particular:

Stopping the bleeding.

A person can bleed to death in just minutes, before an ambulance can arrive. Studies show that 35 percent of prehospital trauma deaths are the result of uncontrolled hemorrhaging. That works out to hundreds of thousands of lost lives every year. Many of these deaths are preventable.

Tod Baker, EMS coordinator for the Northern Ohio Trauma System (NOTS), is on the local front lines of a nationwide effort to educate, train and empower civilians so they can step up in an emergency, stop bleeding and save lives.

The effort came out of the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. It culminated with the first-ever National Stop The Bleed Day on Saturday, March 31.

People all over Northeast Ohio gathered at local fire stations, medical centers, even shopping malls and took a free 60- to 90-minute class that taught them how to stop the bleeding during an emergency. These are skills that you could use to save a loved one, a neighbor, a stranger or yourself, Baker says.

“I believe that society is good,” says Baker. “Oftentimes people don’t act because they don’t know how to act. They don’t know what to do. Stop The Bleed empowers people with the knowledge and education to act.”

As this incident from December 2017 shows, the training works.

MetroHealth recently took the training on the road to staff at Elyria City Schools. More than 50 teachers and support staff joined representatives from NOTS and MetroHealth's trauma prevention team. You can find a photo gallery from the training below, and click here to learn more about how we trained the teachers.

If you missed traingings on National Stop the Bleed Day, you can still take a class. Go to BleedingControl.org and click “find a class” to locate and sign up for a free session.