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Stop the Bleed training was created about a decade ago in response to mass shootings. 

When a person suffers a traumatic injury, bleeding is the number one cause of death. Time is of the essence. A person can bleed to death in minutes. 

“When we think of Stop the Bleed, think of the little Dutch boy that’s putting their finger in the dike. You’re just trying to plug a hole,” said Tom Vanderwal, program director at Greater Northwest Emergency Medical Services. 

Vanderwal is on a mission to spread this message across northern Minnesota.

Greater Northwest Emergency Medical Services is one of eight regional EMS planning agencies statewide. Those agencies coordinate training across the state. Vanderwal leads emergency medical training across 12 northern counties.

He recently brought Stop the Bleed training to a class at Park Rapids High School. This is one of his target audiences. 

“If I could do this for every single high school kid before they graduate, in 10-15 years I’ve got a whole generation that are basic first responders,” Vanderwal explained.

This training teaches the students to apply pressure to a wound, pack a wound with gauze, and for the wounds that won't stop bleeding, apply a tourniquet.

Vanderwal also teaches the students to be creative. No gauze? Use a T-shirt. No tourniquet? Use a shirt sleeve and a stick.

He will bring this training to anyone from police officers to community service clubs to classrooms. His goal is to create a corps of citizen responders. 

“So that you’re a first responder for your neighbor, I’m a first responder for my spouse, my kids, my neighbor,” Vanderwal explained. “That’s my crazy vision that I have for the future, especially in northwest region.”

That vision comes from the realization that the number of rural emergency responders is shrinking as fewer people volunteer.  

While CPR for people in cardiac arrest has been widely taught for decades, the 

But trainer Troy Mayer believes it’s critical knowledge to spread around, because a severely injured person can bleed to death in two minutes, long before an ambulance arrives.

“When we have these extremity bleeds, it’s easily correctable with a tourniquet,” said Mayer, who is also a Wadena County Sheriffs Deputy. “We’re talking these statistics of 70 percent of people that exsanguinate or die from bleeding out is stuff that could have been stopped.”

Mayer helps students apply a tourniquet on a fake leg with deep wounds, and he tries to dispel what he calls a long standing myth about using a tourniquet.

“The tourniquet is not this big, scary thing. And we’ve always been taught when we were younger generations ago, that if you put a tourniquet on basically you’re going to amputate that limb, and that’s just not the case,” Mayer said.

Students are told to write the time they apply the tourniquet somewhere on the patient, using blood if they don’t have a pen. At the emergency room that information is important for doctors working to restore blood flow to the injured limb.

Park Rapids district nurse Tia Kocka says school staff have been trained to Stop the Bleed and she believes it is a critical skill. 

“Not only in a school setting, if somebody were to become injured and start bleeding, but also in a community setting,” Kocka said. “If somebody comes across an accident or they’re just at their house, just living everyday life, it can help save lives.”

Stop the bleed tools include rolls of gauze, tape, gloves, a pen and a tourniquet. Vanderwal puts those tools in zip lock bags and dispenses them to people who take the class. He also leaves them in public spaces whenever he can.

Junior Addison Lauwagie said this training gives her more confidence to deal with a traumatic injury she might come upon. 

“When I’m just like sitting there driving down the road, I’m like, ‘Oh, if I just like saw an accident, what would I even do,” she said. “Like, I know CPR. But like, if they were bleeding, I don’t know.”

She left the class with a Stop the Bleed kit to carry in her car, and the knowledge to use it.

Dan Gunderson

Author

Bleeding is the leading cause of death in traumatic injuries. Minutes can mean the difference between life and death. Minnesota emergency responders are on a mission to save lives by training a wide range of people to respond to traumatic injuries.

Stop the Bleed training aims to create citizen first responders

two people stand next to a medical device

Dan Gunderson | MPR News

a group of high school students in a classroom 

Dan Gunderson| MPR News 

a plastic bag containing medical supplies

Stop the Bleed training aims to create citizen first responders

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