Stop the Bleed Teaches Techniques That Save Lives

By JESSICA SMITH/Patriot Talon Contributor

Nick Smith is thankful he and others knew what to do when a chainsaw sliced into his leg.

“One time I hit my knee with a running chain saw, it began to bleed a lot, so we used my dad’s belt as a makeshift tourniquet until we made it to urgent care,” said Smith, a student at Tyler Junior College.

That wasn’t the only time Smith had to take emergency action to stop bleeding.

“I also had another injury to my other knee that needed trauma packing,” he said. “I was running, and I tripped and fell across a steel drainage grate and sliced my knee right open. We used clean wash cloth and towels to pack it so it would stop bleeding.”

Although Smith knew what to do when he was cut and bleeding, too often people do not. The Stop the Bleed campaign wants to change that.

Stop the Bleed is a national organization with a goal to train millions of people on how to stop a severe bleed, which can save someone’s life.

According to Stop the Bleed’s website, the program is a collaborative effort led by the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma to bring knowledge of bleeding control to the public. The program was influenced by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. Twenty children and seven adults were killed in the shooting.

“The program started in 2019 and has been going strong ever since,” Program Co-creator and professor Christopher Frydenlund said. “The majority of bleeding control kits were in place by the end of 2020. Longitudinal design and advertisement also began at the end of 2020. Procedures are in place to continue the program well into the future through the School of Nursing.”

“I started the program (at UT Tyler) myself originally, t.hn the program became involved with a detachment from the School of Nursing at UT Tyler. I became interested when I read a graduate thesis on bleeding control. I then began development and implementation of the Stop the Bleed Program for UT Tyler. I became an instructor, and ensured certain individuals were trained in Stop the Bleed procedures.”

Christopher Frydenlund, UT Tyler program co-creator 

“I set up classes for volunteers to become trained as well. The EH&S department at UT Tyler, along with generous donations and help, bought bleeding control kits for every classroom and laboratory on the campuses,” he continued. 

Stop the Bleed teaches compression and how to apply tourniquets that can be used to stop traumatic bleeding and prevent death, Frydenlund said.

Stop The Bleed classes at UT Tyler will be held on the following dates:

• Monday, September 12, 2022 @ 12:00pm – 1:00pm
• Monday, September 19, 2022 @ 5:30pm – 6:30pm
• Monday, October 10, 2022 @ 12:00pm – 1:00pm
• Monday, October 17, 2022 @ 5:30pm – 6:30pm
• Monday, October 31, 2022 @ 12:00pm – 1:00pm
• Monday, November 14, 2022 @ 5:30pm – 6:30pm

“Bleeding control is an immediate and available intervention, and I am very proud to continue this research,” he said. 

Stop the Bleed classes are free to faculty, staff and students. Classes take about 60 minutes.  The UT Tyler team leading the Stop the Bleed initiative is made up of professionals from Nursing and Environmental Health and Safety.

Tyler Independent School District requires that all faculty and staff be trained in Stop the Bleed techniques.

“We were trained by trauma nurses and doctors, and they showed us how to apply tourniquets, and if it’s in area where you can’t apply a tourniquet, they teach you how to apply packing,” TISD school nurse Florina Gomez said.

“We have a Stop the Bleed packet in every single room in all the schools in the (TISD) district. Inside the kit it has a tourniquet, packing or gauze, bandage wrap, gloves and first aid instructions.”

Florina Gomez, TISD school nurse 

“Within the training, we were shown how to handle an active shooting situation. Most of the time someone has died, it was because they bleed out … they could have been saved if there was a tourniquet there. God forbid that if a shooting ever happened we could just get to the kit and save a life,” she said.

Learn More 

The link to reach the UT Tyler Stop the Bleed page is https://www.uttyler.edu/stop-the-bleed.  It has information about the campaign, classes, and link to sign up for classes.

For more information, call (903) 566-6189 or email .