WCFYMCA to host Stop the Bleed class

The Washington County Family YMCA will be hosting a free Stop the Bleed training open to 20 students each night on Monday, Feb. 17 and Thursday, Feb. 20, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. This training will be conducted by firefighter and EMT Matthew Kidd. Registration is required.

Through this Stop the Bleed course, attendees will gain the ability to recognize life-threatening bleeding and intervene effectively. The person next to a bleeding victim may be the one who’s most likely to save them. Take the course and become empowered to make a life or death difference when a bleeding emergency occurs.

Stop the Bleed traces its origins to the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. A few months later, a concerned local trauma surgeon and regent of the American College of Surgeons (ACS), Dr. Lenworth M. Jacobs, Jr., requested to review victims’ autopsy records. Results showed that the victims died from severe bleeding. Severe bleeding, that if controlled, could have probably kept them from going into shock until emergency help arrived on the scene.

From this, a national emergency response goal emerged to improve victim survival following mass shootings and other intentional acts of mass violence by empowering trained bystanders to take life-saving action if quickly needed — regardless of the situation or cause of severe bleeding. Stop the Bleed, a national public awareness campaign, was launched shortly thereafter, in October 2015 by the White House, with a call to action to begin training more people to become immediate responders until professional help arrives.

Since then, the Stop the Bleed program has continued to grow as America continues to witness and experience unexpected violence and injuries in our daily life — on the highway, in the workplace, at schools, and in other public places where we should be able to gather with an expectation of safety. The ACS Committee on Trauma first publicly introduced bleeding control training courses for its members in October 2016, and since then, hundreds of other medical professionals have trained to become course instructors. Today, those instructors are focused on training people in all walks of life to become immediate responders through the Stop the Bleed course. As of September 2019, more than 1 million people around the world have been trained to save a life through the Stop the Bleed program.

For more information or to register please contact the Washington County Family YMCA at (812) 883-9622 or visit us at 1709 N Shelby St. in Salem.

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