CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - The Charleston County School District is starting the year off by training teachers new life saving skills.
A national program called Stop the Bleed teaches teachers how to stop the bleeding in the case of a mass casualty or trauma event.
The program gives a hand on approach to show teachers what they can do to stop mass bleeding before EMS arrives.
“If someone were to be injured and they were bleeding we want people to have the skill of tourniquet application, wound packing and holding pressure so they can help that person, so they don’t bleed out before help arrives,” Regina Creech with MUSC’s trauma center said.
"People can die from an arterial bleed within three minutes. Unfortunately, your EMS and fire department can't physically get there, and any staff member will learn how to stop an arterial bleed which can save lives,” CCSD Nurse of the year Jill Burgin said.
Friday was the first of the Stop the Bleed trainings for CCSD teachers. The goal is to start 2019 with a push to train all CCSD staff members new safety skills to potentially save kids’ lives.
"It's just as important as CPR, it's drastically and direly important,” Creech said. “I think in today's world we think about first that school shooting situation and that's where this product was born and developed out of, but we know being in at trauma center and working in EMS that anything can happen, and people can injure themselves in a variety of ways.”
Burgin said the district plans to have all staff members trained, and Friday was just the start.
Burgin also said the district plans on butting Stop the Bleed kits in every district classroom and hallway.
“We’ll be more readily equipped to move into action and to put those measures into place that can save someone’s life,” Burgin said. “We can work on saving their life sooner.”
The kits are provided by the state department of health and environment control and the state department of education.
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