Police learn emergency medicine
Police partnered with the fire department to learn emergency medical procedures last week.
Police learned to manage bleeding and render emergency care that could save officers and citizens during a class taught by Josh Kuykendall, the battalion chief with Central EMS, and Bella Vista firefighter-paramedic William Coker.
Lt. Barbara Shrum, head of the police department’s criminal investigation division, took the class, along with several officers.
Shrum said she started with the department as a dispatcher in 1985 and, after her first year, became an EMT and went on volunteer runs with the ambulance service. In her final year as a dispatcher, she said, she trained as a paramedic, only to take an opening in the police department.
“It just kind of fell in line for me to be a cop instead of a medic, but I’m still interested in it,” she said. “It was my other life.”
The class, she said, was interesting on its own but also showed how much standards of care have changed. Tourniquets can be left on longer than previously believed, she said, and some of her old equipment — like MAST or Military Anti-Shock Trousers — is no longer in use.
It’s all good to learn, she said, and it’s nice to see that some forms of care are becoming easier to perform.
This is the first time the Bella Vista Police Department has taken a police first-responder course, Coker said. The class, he said, is a product of collaboration between the police and fire chiefs.
Police and EMS often work closely together, he said, and often in a medical emergency the police may be closer to the patient when the call comes in, meaning they can be on scene in front of the ambulance.
It’s good, he said, to see the departments collaborating. Moreover, he said, he appreciates that the community supports the city’s emergency services.
“I think we’re planting the seed of something great,” he said.
Kuykendall said that he’s been teaching this course since 2016, initially working with departments in Washington County. In that time, he said, there have been roughly 40 recorded instances of law enforcement officers applying tourniquets that have saved people.
The training, he said, includes an overview of how to control bleeding — including the use of pressure and tourniquets — on oneself and others, as well as how to recognize symptoms of a lack of blood flow, or shock, and how to stabilize patients.
It helps officers do more at just about any scene where someone is injured, whether it’s a shooting or an automotive collision.
“No matter what incident they respond to, they’ve got more tools,” he said.
Bella Vista police chief James Graves said that roughly two-thirds of officers went through the training in two days. He intends to schedule another class for next year, he said, to train the remaining officers who were unable to attend.
This training, he said, has recently become part of the police academy training, but this provides an opportunity for officers who have been on the force longer to pick up a new and helpful skill. Additionally, he said, his budget for 2018 includes trauma kits that will allow officers to provide emergency injury treatment.
Bella Vista is a relatively small city, he said, but that doesn’t mean bad things can’t happen.
“My job as chief of police is to be sure we’re ready for any situation that could come up,” Graves said.
He’s also planning, he said, to work on collaborative training with the city’s emergency medical workers for things like warm zone extraction. In the unlikely and unfortunate event of a mass shooting, he said, this training could help emergency workers rescue injured individuals from spaces that may still be dangerous.
Lt. Shrum said she was glad to see the changes in emergency medicine, but also to see police and fire working closely together. The departments were more tight-knit when they were smaller, she said, and that’s something worth bringing back.
“We’re a big family and we’ve got to stay that way,” she said.