By Dawn Burleigh

The Orange Leader

 

With shooting, wrecks and other tragedies filling the front page, Golden Triangle Emergency Center (GTEC) wants to empower the community by offering a course in how to stop the bleeding.

Aptly named Stop The Bleed, the stand-alone emergency center located in West Orange, is offering the course for free to anyone who wants to know what to do in a trauma incident.

“Everyone can come,” Angela Webb, Rn, BSN, CEN said. “If the person is a nurse, a paramedic, a doctor or an athletic trainer, after completing the course is certified to be an instructor to teach others.”

Teaching others is what GTEC would like to see happen.

“We hope it keeps going and they train others,” Webb said. “We have gone into the schools and they are excited about it.”

If one school in the district takes the course, GTEC gives each school in the district a trauma kit.

“We would like to be able to provide one for each classroom,” Webb said.

GETC is currently working on establishing a non-profit for the purpose of raising funds to provide the kits for every classroom in Orange County.

Reasons for taking the course can vary from the type of work one does to the concern of being prepared in the case of a school shooting.

“It is important to be able to think in that type situation,” Webb said. “You have to be focused.”

The very first step is to ensure your own safety and call 9-1-1.

The course covers the different types of wounds such as a surface or a deep wound and the proper use of a tourniquet.

“The biggest mistakes are with a tourniquet,” Webb said. “They don’t make it tight enough to stop the bleeding or they do not write the time it was put on.”

Webb added the person needing the tourniquet would be in pain when it is applied.

“If you don’t do it, they can die,” Webb said.

The two-hour course also helps you assess the injured on the scene to help inform first responders who may need medical attention first.

The knowledge provided in the course is given in an easy to understand presentation while also allowing for hands-on activities to help one better understand the process.

The next classes for Stop the Bleed at 5:30 p.m. – 7 p.m. Feb. 5 and May 7, 2019. To sign up, call 409-920-4470. Space is limited to 16 per class. The class is free.