PORT TOWNSEND — “Stop the Bleed.”
“You have only three minutes of uncontrolled bleeding before a person faces a life-threatening situation and death,” Trisha Duerr, RN from Olympic Medical Center, told Port Townsend High School staff members during a recent professional development day program.
Along with Port Townsend School Resource Officer Jeremy Vergin and East Jefferson Fire-Rescue paramedic Tammy Ridgeway, Duerr demonstrated basic skills for bleeding control Friday.
The workshop taught the proper and appropriate use of a tourniquet for life-threatening wounds. Other techniques reviewed included applying direct pressure on a wound and packing a wound with gauze or cloth.
According to Vergin, uncontrolled bleeding is the No. 1 cause of preventable death from trauma.
“It is important to call 9-1-1 in the event of an emergency to notify first responders of the situation,” Duerr said.
“Life-threatening bleeding is defined as blood that’s spurting out of a wound, pooling, soaking through clothing, a partial amputation or if the victim is unconscious,” she said.
Duerr demonstrated the proper way to apply direct pressure to a wound if no trauma kit is available. She also showed how to pack the wound with bleeding control gauze, plain gauze or a clean cloth and apply pressure with both hands in case no tourniquet is available.
The staff practiced on each other and on medical training devices. Simulated latex limbs with wounds in different locations were provided as props so staff could learn the proper way to pack with gauze and coagulant.
Each classroom at Port Townsend High School was provided an emergency bucket filled with emergency supplies. Some of the items included are a First Aid kit, water and toilet paper, trash bags, medical gauze, clotting gauze, straps and ropes, gloves, wipes and granola bars.
Vergin said the presentation is an adjunct to the active shooter/mass casualty training that started in the school district this fall.
“Alice [Alert, Lockdown,Inform,Counter, Evaluate] training is being done through a collaboration with the police department and Port Townsend Schools and it will go out to the entire district,” he said.
“The school system is handling the structured training online,” he added. “The police provide the hands on-training, and review locations and security throughout the district.”
Vergin said there are plans to take the Stop the Bleed training to Blue Heron Middle School and Salish Coast Elementary.
Launched in October 2015 by the White House, Stop the Bleed is a national awareness campaign and a call to action. It is intended to encourage bystanders to become trained, equipped and empowered to help in a bleeding emergency and become the initial part of the trauma care chain of survival.
For more information, see www.bleedingcontrol.org.
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Jefferson County Editor/Reporter Jeannie McMacken can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jmcmacken@peninsuladailynews.com.
