HOW YOU CAN SAVE A LIFE WITH THESE FIVE BLEEDING CONTROL TIPS

​Blood loss accounts for more than 60,000 deaths a year. These deaths might be because of injuries at work, at home, acts of violence, and/or acts of terrorism.

These statistics only continue to climb as crime, school shootings, and acts of terrorism plague our nation. The good news is, you can do something to save one of these 60,000 lives.

My school recently offered training that taught the basics of bleeding control through a nation-wide initiative called “Stop the Bleed.”

​During this specific training, we received active shooter training as well as the bleeding control training.
 
I won’t pretend that I’m an expert on things like this, but I wanted to share some of my “civilian” knowledge on a few things you can do to help save the life of someone with a life-threatening injury.

I HAVE LINKED TO TWO PRODUCTS ON AMAZON. THIS IS JUST TO CONNECT YOU WITH THE PRODUCTS I'M WRITING ABOUT. I DO NOT GET ANY COMPENSATION FOR PROMOTING THESE PARTICULAR PRODUCTS.

1: KNOW YOUR TOOLS

​For bleeding control, the people who taught our course recommended having a tourniquet and hemostatic gauze.
 
Tourniquets are bands that can be tightened two-to-three inches above the wound. Keep tightening the tourniquet until the blood stops. Resist the urge to loosen it! These are best used on extremity (arms and legs) wounds.

​Hemostatic gauze is a type of wound dressing that is treated with a clotting agent. However, the gauze can start to dissolve when it comes in to contact with blood. Work quickly to avoid activation before it gets packed into the wound.
 
Your hands can also be of use! Put pressure on the wound using both of your hands. 

2: CONSIDER MAKING A KIT

You know what it is like to be unprepared. I know that I never worried about jumper cabled for my car until my car battery needed a bit of a boost to get started. The best way to assure you will be prepared is to make a small kit that you can carry around in your bag or in your car. I would recommend, from what I learned in the training, to get a tourniquet, hemostatic gauze, and gloves for your small kit. Gloves are essential in avoiding blood-borne illnesses.

It might also help to have some sort of pain reliever in your kit.

3: CALL FOR MEDICAL ASSISTANCE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

Though you could save someone’s life with these tools, it is imperative that you get medical services coming on their way as soon as possible. If you are with another person, have them dial for emergency services while you begin helping the victim. If you are alone, start the call, put it on speaker phone, and get to work trying to help. The faster you can get to medical services, the better. 

They are able to treat the patient and get them to potentially life-saving treatment and surgery.

4: CONTROL BLEEDING UNTIL MEDICAL SERVICES CAN GET THERE

If you come across a situation where there is an injured person bleeding out, keep pressure on or control the bleeding until a medical provider can get to the patient. Some people may have the urge to release pressure on a wound to see if it stopped on its own. While it may very well stop before medical services can get there, you should continue to keep pressure on the wound until emergency services arrive.

5: THINGS TO REMEMBER

Bleeding control methods like the tourniquet, wound packing with hemostatic gauze, and pressure from the hands will hurt. The victim will likely scream or even ask you to stop. Pain does not indicate that you are doing anything wrong. 

I have found no evidence in the United States that you can be charged with anything should your attempts fail or result in some other injury. 

However, please continue to research this. This should not be your concern. You should try to help whenever you can.

Lastly, you likely will not know the victim or if they have any sort of blood-borne disease. Try to protect your hands and skin from their blood as much as possible. If you can’t avoid it, you can follow them to the hospital to be tested following any exposure.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

For more information about this training, head over to BleedingControl.org.  You can also grab a bleeding control kit from www.ControlBleedingKits.com. 

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I did not receive compensation of any kind to write about Stop the Bleed or promote any specific products. These are just suggestions!