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 “It’s a simple skill, which if you don’t have it, could lead to
someone bleeding significantly and potentially dying,” said lead
study author Lenworth Jacobs, director of the Hartford Hospital
Trauma Institute in Connecticut.
“Our goal is to inform and empower the public because that first
line of defense can really make a difference,” he told Reuters
Health. “If someone drops in front of you, you want to feel like you
can save a life.”
Jacobs and his colleagues tested their 15-minute bleeding control
course, called B-Con, at a national meeting of surgeons in October
2016 by teaching 341 attendees techniques for stopping bleeding just
as members of the public would be trained.
After the course, they surveyed the participating surgeons about
whether they thought the training initiative was a good idea.
Jacobs’ team found that 94 percent of the doctors agreed that
teaching bleeding control should be a national priority. In
addition, 93 percent said the course was at the right difficulty
level to train citizens. About 82 percent said people would need a
refresher course every two or three years to remember proper
bleeding control techniques.
“In a previous survey across the country, we found that 90 percent
of the public was interested in learning how to stop bleeding, which
really surprised us,” Jacobs said. “What they don’t want is to feel
frozen when something happens right in front of them.”
The training program, described on the BleedingControl.org website,
teaches hemorrhage control skills, including direct pressure, wound
packing and tourniquet application in extreme situations. The goal
is to pair the course with CPR education to spread it nationwide.
After the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in
2012, the American College of Surgeons created the Joint Committee
to Create a National Policy to Enhance Survivability from Mass
Casualty Shooting Events. Following the Boston Marathon bombing in
2013, the committee expanded their focus to all mass casualty
events, as well as everyday events that result in severe bleeding,
such as car accidents or kitchen knife mishaps.
The committee started a national initiative called Bystanders: Our
Nation’s Immediate Responders, and the White House began the Stop
the Bleed campaign in 2015 to encourage the public to learn bleeding
control techniques. The B-Con course is the latest step toward make
bleeding control instruction a nationwide program, Jacobs’ team
writes in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
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The campaign includes promotional efforts, Jacobs noted. For
example, Rob Lowe and Marcia Harden, stars of the popular CBS show
“Code Black,” did a one-minute public service announcement at the
end of an episode that was seen by 7 million viewers. The American
College of Surgeons is also encouraging schools and workplaces to
put bleeding control kits next to automatic defibrillators.
“The world has changed. If we want to talk about building a
resilient country, this is one thing everyone can do to help
increase personal preparedness,” said Alexander Eastman, director of
the trauma center at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical
Center in Dallas.
Eastman, who wasn’t involved with the study, is part of a U.S.
Department of Homeland Security team that has promoted the Stop the
Bleed campaign.
“What surprises me is the willingness of Americans to help their
fellow man or woman when they need it,” he told Reuters Health.
“Previously, in shooter situations, we taught everyone to run and
hide, and now people want to help, which hasn’t been documented
before.”
A bleeding control program, however, must address concerns about
seeing and touching blood, as well as getting an infection or
causing additional harm to the injured person.
“Bleeding is not a reason for panic,” said George Velmahos, chief of
trauma and critical care at Massachusetts General Hospital in
Boston. Valmahos, who wasn’t involved with the study, is part of a
team that will be teaching the B-Con course in high schools around
Boston.
“The next step is clearly evaluating the effectiveness of this
course for the public,” he told Reuters Health by email. “Is this
just a nice exercise, or is the average citizen really likely to
save a life? This research will be hard to do, but it’s necessary to
prove this major effort is worthwhile.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2rwcSkh Journal of the American College of
Surgeons, online May 10, 2017.
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