BALTIMORE — Are you prepared to save a life?
Each year, preventable deaths happen because of uncontrolled blood loss, but there are some simple things you can do as a bystander when waiting for emergency first responders to help the victim.
This month is Stop The Bleed month, and today is National Stop the Bleed day. The American College of Surgeons Stop the Bleed program was established in 2015 as a result of the tragic Sandy Hook shooting.
In May 2015, Deborah was visiting family in New Jersey and when she left the gathering, she was struck by a bus before being dragged down the street, causing her to lose both of her legs.
She says the only reason she's still here is because a local policeman who got the dispatch and was less than a minute away carried tourniquet's on his belt and additional ones in the kit in his car.
He was able to stop the bleeding and save her life.
"If he had not been there and I had to wait for the ambulance, I would have bled out," she said.
The training course is easy to learn and can help you save a life.
In a Stop the Bleed course, you’ll learn three quick techniques to help save a life before someone bleeds out:
- How to use your hands to apply pressure to a wound
- How to pack a wound to control bleeding
- How to correctly apply a tourniquet.
You can click here to find a course near you.
