Preston Memorial Hospital teams up with Mon Health EMS to bring the Stop the Bleed program to Preston County Schools

Preston Memorial Hospital has teamed up with Mon Health EMS to bring the Stop the Bleed program to Preston County Schools.

 

Stop the Bleed is an initiative developed by the American College of Surgeons, the Committee on Trauma, the Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care, the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians and the Hartford Consensus. The program was established following Sandy Hook, the Boston Marathon and other mass-casualty tragedies.

 

The purpose of the Stop the Bleed initiative is to prevent uncontrolled bleeding through education on how to properly treat open wounds in times of emergency.

 

Preston Memorial Physician Liaison and Stop the Bleed trainer, Dr. Fred Conley, explained the importance of offering such trainings in Preston County. “Uncontrolled bleeding is the number one cause of preventative death from trauma,” Conley said. “The more people who know how to control bleeding in an injured patient, the better chance of survival.”

 

The Mon Health Medical Center Foundation purchased Stop the Bleed kits to be distributed to all public schools within Monongalia and Preston Counties. The kits include hemostatic gauze to clot blood within wounds, gloves, a tourniquet and other necessary first aid items.

 

Mon Health EMS has trained three PMH employees to provide Stop the Bleed education to Preston County school nurses and teachers. Preston County has been provided with 180 kits to be allocated amongst each of the schools in the county.

 

“This knowledge and equipment provided to each school can be truly lifesaving,” Conley said. “There are 180 lives that could potentially be saved by this equipment.”

 

Preston Memorial will be offering employee trainings, and PMH trainers aim to open education courses to community groups in the future.

 

“In the past, bystanders have been told if you see something, say something. In today’s world the thought should be if you see something, do something,” Conley said. “The only thing more tragic than a death from bleeding is a death that could have been prevented.”