Paradise Township Emergency Services and the Munson Trauma Program are working together to train people on three quick actions that could save lives.
“It is kind of scary,” says Sarah Helveston, program manager. “But if you have the training and you practice these things, it’s less scary because you know how to.”
Helveston and Lt. Cobey Taylor from the are teaching the staff at Kingsley Area Schools how to do their ABCs; but these ABCs save lives.
“The importance of the ABCs is that your first going to alert 911 so that they can get EMS here as soon as possible,” Helveston says. “The B is for bleeding, the source, whether it is a gunshot wound or an injury.”
Finally, C is for compress.
Lt. Taylor says for compression you want to apply direct pressure to the injury with a clean cloth. If the wound is still bleeding, then the person should use a tourniquet. The key is to get it as tight as you can until the victim stops bleeding.
Lt. Taylor says he hopes these steps will help control the bleeding until emergency officers get there. “It takes us an average of 2 minutes to get out of the station so it’s valuable time that they could utilize to use the kit,” Lt. Taylor says.
A valuable skill these staff members hope they’ll never have to use.
Principal of Kingsley High School Mike Moran says, “Having staff be confident when a situation like this arises, you never think it’s going to happen, but your ability to respond accordingly is vital to maybe saving a life.”
But Lt. Taylor says he doesn’t want the training to stop here.
“I don’t want to see it just in northern Michigan, I want help pave the way for them to do it all throughout the country.”
The State of Michigan and Munson Trauma Program donated three bleeding control kits to Kingsley Area Schools.
For more information about the Stop the Bleed Campaign, check out their website at .
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