Uncontrollable bleeding is the leading cause of preventable death from a traumatic injury. Nursing students at the College of Coastal Georgia are joining the effort to prevent those injuries from becoming deadly through the “Stop the Bleed” campaign.
Stop the Bleed is a nationwide initiative dedicated to educating the public on basic techniques for bleeding control for injured people. On March 29, nursing students will offer a free Stop the Bleed training class for campus police officers and community members. In addition, they will host a one-mile run/walk fundraiser to raise funds to purchase bleeding control kits.
Bystanders and non-medical law enforcement officers can play a vital role in the time between injury and when professional medical help arrives during an emergency. Those attending the Stop the Bleed event will be taught lifesaving techniques by certified instructors. The training class will be held from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Southeast Georgia Conference Center.
The class will provide instruction for emergency bleed treatment with and without a bleeding control kit. Each kit contains a tourniquet, wound packing materials, and protective gloves. The sign-up fee is $5 for the run/walk and it will begin at 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the College’s mile trail around Lake Teel.
Senior bachelor of science nursing students Miranda Crews, Cathy Martinez, Bethany O’Connor, and Jessica Feingold—who are taking a course in Community-Focused Nursing—selected the Stop the Bleed initiative as their service-learning project. Service-learning is a combination of academic course content and relevant community service projects that allow students to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom out in the community. Crews said that Georgia was the first state to equip all public schools with Stop the Bleeds kits and provide training for staff.
“In my hometown of Camden County, three lives have been saved at school using these kits so far,” she said. “My group members and I want to further increase the potential of saving lives beyond just public schools by getting these kits for our college campus, while providing training for the staff and anyone else who wants to learn.”
Feingold said her group realized there was limited access to public education on lifesaving techniques in Brunswick.
“As future nurses, we hope by providing a free training class and teaching the community of Brunswick appropriate ways for emergent life-saving bleeding control we can help increase future survival rates,” Feingold said.
Their hope is to increase the wellbeing of the community and encourage the public to become trained, equipped, and empowered during an emergency.
To sign-up for the training class visit, https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080448aeaa2aa6fb6… and to register for the run/walk go to https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080448aeaa2aa6fb6…
The Stop the Bleed events are done in partnership between the College of Coastal Georgia Department of Nursing, Center for Service-Learning, Campus Police Department, and Stop the Bleed.