ABC6: Stop the Bleed with OhioHealth
In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, came the national Stop the Bleed program where community members can take part in trainings to possibly help save lives in traumatic situations.
OhioHealth trauma team associates and physicians recently taught the Stop the Bleed course at Linden McKinley High School, where staff members were able to get hands-on training with life-saving equipment such as tourniquets.
The OhioHealth trauma team believes that this type of training will allow community members – in this case, school officials – to be better prepared if a mass shooting or other life threatening situation involving loss of blood were to occur. With this training, the Linden McKinley staff members will have the skills to stop a bleed until medical help is able to arrive.
Stacey Wickham, outreach coordinator at OhioHealth, believes that this program is quintessential for this day and age where tragedies happen so quickly.
“Unfortunately, the world we live in today is someplace that horrible things happen on a daily basis.” Wickham said. “It only takes 3-5 minutes for a person to lose their total blood volume, most times before medical personnel can arrive. By taking this short course non-medical people can be turned into “immediate responders”.
Stop the Bleed participant, Eric Maddox, safety and security coordinator at Columbus City Schools, knows that accidents and tragedies can happen. “Heaven forbid critical incidents happen in our schools, this [program] is outstanding,” he told ABC6, who was there to cover the training session.
OhioHealth associates at the event played a critical role providing participants with knowledgeable techniques that will hopefully help save a life in any given situation.
Wickham said, “Knowing that you can make a difference in a life threatening situation is very rewarding, especially in the young people that have taken the course. It makes the general public not feel helpless in these situations.”
If you are interested in scheduling a free Stop the Bleed course for your group/organization, please contact:
- OhioHealth Grant Medical Center: Stacey.Wickham@ohiohealth.com
- OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital: Emily.Yang@ohiohealth.com
- OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital: Wendy.Gunder@ohiohealth.com
To view the 10TV and ABC6 stories about this event, please click on the image below.
