“Stop the Bleed—Save a Life” was the subject of the program for the Winnfield Rotary Club on April 17. Donice Fletcher, RN, clinical nursing director of Winn Parish Medical Center, assisted by Jalenna Garrett, LPN, taught the life-saving method to Rotarians at the request of Rotarian of the Day, Victoria Hubbard Knighten.
“In 2012, the Sandy Hook mass shooting left 20 children and 8 adults dead. Soon after, the Boston Marathon bombing occurred, in which many people were killed or injured,” says Ms. Fletcher. Several medical organizations whose members engage in treatment of trauma and emergency victims created a coalition with a goal to teach 200 million people the best way to treat bleeding injuries to save a life in emergencies.
The most common cause of death from an accident is bleeding. Stopping the bleed as soon as possible is critical in an emergency because a person bleeding from an artery will bleed out and die in three to five minutes, and the average time for emergency medical assistance to arrive at the scene is seven to ten minutes. Therefore, a person at the scene of the accident must act to stop the bleeding, or the victim will die.
Life-threatening bleeding injuries don’t just happen in mass shootings or bombings, according to Ms. Fletcher. Many individuals sustain such injuries in hunting accidents, accidents with knives or mechanical equipment, lawn care accidents, and such. Therefore, everyone should have training in how to stop the bleeding in an emergency, in the same way everyone should know how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
The Stop The Bleed (STB) method was first developed by the military for injuries in battle. It was shared with and promoted in the civilian sector with the increase in mass injuries. The first step is to recognize life-threatening bleeding and alert emergency services to get personnel on their way to the scene. Second, find the source of the bleeding. Third, apply compression.
On the extremities, compression is applied by placing a tourniquet to squeeze the artery together and stop blood from flowing through it. A tourniquet specifically made for this purpose is the best thing to use on arms or legs, and the method for applying it was demonstrated for the group. Ms. Fletcher cautioned that one should not waste time searching for a tourniquet or trying to make one, just go ahead and start packing the wound with gauze and apply pressure. Anyone may get a tourniquet to keep on hand from STB.org.
In the head, neck, trunk areas, compression is applied to the bleed by packing the injury site with gauze, using a finger to stuff gauze down into the wound until no more will go, putting pressure with the heel of the palm over the gauze to hold it in, and placing the other hand or elbow over the first hand. Never let up on the pressure with the hand until emergency personnel are there to take over, even if you think the bleeding may have stopped, because if it hasn’t stopped, the process must be repeated from the beginning.