HHS teachers receive bleeding control training, kits

When a person is bleeding out, minutes count. UAB trauma center Director Dr. Jeff Kerby said blood loss can lead to death in as little as eight minutes, in some circumstances.

If a Homewood High student or staff member ever has a heavy blood loss injury, Kerby doesn't want to waste valuable minutes waiting for emergency responders. Instead, he wants to empower the teachers to take steps that could potentially save a life.

On Wednesday, Aug. 30, teachers at Homewood High attended a "Stop the Bleeding" training course hosted by UAB's trauma center, the Division of Acute Care Surgery. The training included use of tourniquets, pressure and compression bandages to control and slow blood loss. Teachers had the chance to practice their techniques on injury dummies, under the supervision of trauma staff.

Kerby, a trauma surgeon since 1999 and former Air Force combat surgeon, said UAB has primarily focused this sort of training on police departments and emergency medical services (EMS) responders, but Homewood High is the first of what they hope will be many schools to receive the training. Kerby said he'd like to see bleeding-control programs be as common as CPR certification.

"We would like to do this at all the schools in the area," Kerby said. "Every school, in every classroom, in every state."

While many schools have first aid kits and blood loss equipment, Kerby said they're often solely located in a nurse's office or at the school front desk and can't be used properly without training. Should an active shooter situation ever occur, the school would be on lockdown and those medical supplies would be unavailable to any teachers with injured students in their classrooms. Plus, trained medical personnel may not be able to reach those injured for several minutes or hours.

"We want to empower the teachers in the classroom with those kids," Kerby said.

Though an active shooter is unlikely, accidents can also result in blood loss and spending time trying to find a bleeding-control kit can make the consequences of that injury more severe.

At the end of the training, UAB passed out about 110 bleeding-control kits to the participating teachers to keep in their classrooms for easy access. Kerby said he was glad to see the teachers engaged and active in testing their skills on the dummies.

Homewood ESL teacher Jenny Harvey said it was valuable for her to learn facts about tourniquet use and the importance of fast response in bleeding situations.

"I feel like I'm more informed should I ever find myself in this situation," Harvey said. "This is information anyone could use."

Learn more about Stop the Bleed at bleedingcontrol.org.