Floyd EMS helps school nurses Stop the Bleed

Floyd EMS has recently trained nurses in Polk County schools how to save lives using guidelines from the Stop the Bleed program. Nurses in Floyd County and Rome City schools were trained during a school nurse conference held in Savannah this past summer.

Uncontrolled bleeding due to traumatic injury is the most common cause of death outside of a hospital, according to The Hartford Consensus, which is a group of representatives from medicine, the military and law enforcement. The Stop the Bleed program provides training on how to apply tourniquets and pressure to wounds to stop blood loss.

Responders are trained using a trauma kit that includes a tourniquet, gloves, gauze, bandages and other supplies that stop l i f e- t hreatening bleeding on an injured person.

“Stop the Bleed gives the immediate responder the knowledge and the tools to stop the bleeding and save a life,” says Maj. Rick Cobb, Projects/Support Coordinator with Floyd EMS.

A national Stop the Bleed campaign was initiated by the White House in late 2015. Earlier this year, the Georgia Trauma Foundation, Georgia Trauma Commission, the Georgia Society of the American College of Surgeon and the Georgia Committee on Trauma launched the program statewide. The state approved funding to provide 12 bleeding control kits for every public school in the state.

Floyd Corporate Health provides nurses for the Rome, Floyd County and Polk County school systems.

In addition to schools, Floyd EMS will train members of any organization, church or business that would like to receive training. “We want to get to wherever the people are, so that lives can be saved,” stated Cobb.

Anyone interested in receiving Stop the Bleed training should contact Cobb at 706-509-3820.