MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Just as various organizations provide CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) training, the WVU Medicine Jon Michael Moore Trauma Center (JMMTC) and the American College of Surgeons want people to learn how to Stop the Bleed® in order to prevent death from hemorrhage.
According to the American College of Surgeons, “the Stop the Bleed campaign was initiated by a federal interagency workgroup convened by The White House National Security Council Staff under former President Barack Obama. The purpose of the campaign is to build national resilience by better preparing the public to save lives by raising awareness of basic actions to stop life-threatening bleeding following everyday emergencies and man-made and natural disasters. Advances made by military medicine and research in hemorrhage control during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have informed the work of this initiative, which exemplifies translation of knowledge back to the homeland to the benefit of the general public.”
“Our goal at the JMMTC Stop the Bleed Program is to provide training for everyone in our community on what to do in an emergency bleeding situation in order to save a life,” Daniel Grabo, M.D., director of trauma education for the WVU Critical Care and Trauma Institute, said. “Through our regional Stop the Bleed Initiative, we can better accomplish this goal by training medical personnel, emergency responders, and law enforcement to become leaders in this noble endeavor.”
Since last year, the Jon Michael Moore Trauma Center has trained 162 community members on the Stop the Bleed initiative. In addition, the Center has also held train-the-trainer events, which have resulted in 147 new Stop the Bleed instructors, who can now go out and train others. Center staff members have provided and will continue to provide courses to local law enforcement, sororities and fraternities at WVU, local businesses, and other groups interested in completing the training.
“We’d like to place a hemorrhage control kit everywhere there is an AED (automated external defibrillator),” Jennifer Knight Davis, M.D., medical director of the Jon Michael Moore Trauma Center, said. “No one – child or adult – should die from hemorrhage before he or she gets to the hospital, if it can be prevented. As the trauma center of the state’s only academic medical center, it is our job to teach others how to control preventable bleeding.”
Groups and organizations wishing to receive Stop the Bleed training should contact the Jon Michael Moore Trauma Center at 304-598-4659.
For more information on the Stop the Bleed campaign, visit www.bleedingcontrol.org.
For more information on the Jon Michael Moore Trauma Center, visit www.wvumedicine.org/trauma.