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The ninth graders of River Hill High School in Howard
County, Maryland, filed into the gym and took their seats on
the bleachers, abuzz with excitement. Their schedules were
different ... to make room for visiting health professionals
from the Uniformed Services University of the Health
Sciences (USU), Maryland Shock Trauma Center, and Howard
County Fire and Rescue (HCFR) who were there to teach the
students how to save lives through the Stop the Bleed
campaign.
One of the providers, Army Col. (Dr.) Kyle
Remick, has been supporting Stop the Bleed since its
inception. The Stop the Bleed initiative was launched by the
White House in 2015 to encourage bystanders to become
trained, equipped, and empowered to help victims in a
bleeding emergency before professional help arrives.
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December 12, 2017 - Army Col. (Dr.) Kyle Remick, an associate
professor in the Department of Surgery at the Uniformed Services
University of the Health Sciences, recently taught high schoolers in
Howard County, Maryland, how to save lives through the Stop the
Bleed campaign. (Photo by Sarah E Marshall, Uniformed Services
University)
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Remick, an associate professor in the Department of Surgery at
USU, is responsible for teaching the next generation of military
physicians to care for life threatening injuries, and as a trauma
surgeon at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, he has seen
his share of traumatic injury patients. But, he felt the need to
pass that knowledge along to a wider audience.
“I was doing
all this work for the Department of Defense, trying to translate
these lessons and realized I hadn’t done anything in the place where
I live, specifically for the high school that my son goes to,” he
said. “I had already been involved in the Parent-Teacher-Student
Association and realized it would be good to have [this training] in
high school.”
Remick contacted Dr. Matt Levy, the medical
director for HCFR and associate professor of Emergency Medicine at
Johns Hopkins University, to discuss setting up training. It turned
out that Levy had already been promoting Stop the Bleed in the
county, advocating for placement of Stop the Bleed emergency kits in
public areas, including schools. It was these kits that the RHHS
students would be learning about.
The freshmen were first
given a presentation and taught to identify life-threatening wounds;
for example, one spurting blood, or a patient who has already lost
over half a cup of blood. In the United States, it takes emergency
services on average 10 minutes to arrive at a location when they are
called. In that time, a person can lose enough blood from a serious
cut or gunshot wound to be fatal, but with the use of a tourniquet
and/or medical gauze, death may be prevented.
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December 6, 2017 - Sgt. Nelly Morris, a sergeant with security
forces assigned to Womack Army Medical Center (WAMC), applies a
tourniquet as part of "Stop the Bleed" training at the hospital.
(U.S. Army photo by Eve Meinhardt, WAMC PAO)
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Students were split into groups to test what they learned
on extremity simulators, provided by Shock Trauma and HCFR,
made up with realistic-looking traumatic injuries.
Volunteers from Shock Trauma guided them. They were given
the emergency kits, which contained gloves, a tourniquet and
gauze. Before doing anything, they were instructed to put on
their gloves, with instructors emphasizing the importance of
using gloves whenever touching blood to prevent infections
for both the wounded and the responder.
Students
practiced putting the tourniquets on one another and on the
simulators, with the volunteer staff reinforcing they should
only use them on bleeding limbs. Students were then
instructed to apply the tourniquet so it sits between the
heart and the wound, tightening it until blood flow ceased.
Once the bleeding has stopped, or if the cut is on the
torso, it is time to apply gauze, students were told.
“You want to make sure that you pack the
deepest spot of the wound that’s bleeding [with gauze], and not just
wad up the gauze and put it on top of the wound,” Remick said.
“That’s why there’s a model we use. If we just open up a bandage and
stick it on the outside of the cut, it doesn’t do nearly as much.
You specifically need to take the end of the gauze and push it down
deep into the hole.
“I liked how it was really hands-on, we
didn’t just listen to a presentation,” said Maddie Florenzo, one of
the students taking part in the training. “I think it will really
help for future experiences, if I ever get into a situation where
someone has a life-threatening injury.”
Remick believes that
RHHS is the first high school in the state of Maryland to give Stop
the Bleed training to students. The event was a collaboration
between USU, HCFR, Shock Trauma, the Maryland Committee on Trauma
and the Howard County Public School System.
Students and
teachers were excited by the exercises, and very satisfied with the
training they received, leaving with confidence that they will be
able to properly respond to a bleeding emergency.
“This is my
favorite thing to teach,” said Sybil Modispacher, the health teacher
at River Hill High School. “It’s a life skill that students can take
with them into the world.”
By Uniformed Services University
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2018
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