On Wednesday, February 19, St. Luke’s University Hospital presented their “Stop the Bleed” program during the Bath Neighborhood Watch Group meeting at the Bath Borough Hall.
The hour-long event started at 6 p.m.; the event consisted of a PowerPoint presentation educating attendees, including Bath Mayor Mirabito, Bath firefighters, and others, on the ABCs of bleeding. Attendees also got to practice wound packing and using a tourniquet on dummy arms.
Uncontrolled bleeding is the number one cause of preventable trauma deaths, whether it be from a motor accident, mass shooting, or at-home accidents.
The “Stop the Bleed” program is meant to educate both first responders and the public on how to stop uncontrolled bleeding through wound packing and using a tourniquet; these methods save lives and are meant to reduce the number of deaths from uncontrolled bleeding in the event of an emergency.
There is a common misconception that tourniquets are harmful, and should only be used as a very last resort. However, this is far from true; both Mike Snyder and Pennsylvania State Police Corporal Seth Kelly can attest to this.
Snyder stated during the program that he survived an arterial bleed because of tourniquet use.
Further, Cpl. Kelly did the same after a routine traffic stop turned violent. He used a tourniquet on himself to stop the bleeding. This event inspired St. Luke’s University Health Network to start the “Stop the Bleed” program in the area.
St. Luke’s unrolled the program in December 2017. Since then, the program has trained almost 4,000 people and hit about 30 school districts in their service area in 2018 and 2019, according to trauma outreach coordinator Andrea Nesfeder.
There are over 200 St. Luke’s “Stop the Bleed” trainers, including Courtlynn Lawler and Snyder who were present at the event in addition to Nesfeder.
St. Luke’s provides training and trauma kits for schools, workplaces, and more. Visit https://www.slhn.org/stop-the-bleed to request training and education or to order your kits.
