As a Patrol Sergeant, I have lost count of the number of Life Saving Awards I have written up for my Officers since the department wide roll out of Tourniquets and Tactical Casualty Care training.  The same life saving techniques have been made available to any citizen interested through campaigns like “Stop the Bleed” by the American Red Cross and Casualty Care 101 by Professional Defense Advisors (Casualty Care 101 – Professional Defense Advisors (prodefenseadvisors.com).

In 2018, for example, a fourth-grade student in Georgia was playing with friends on the playground when she fell and a friend fell on top of her. According to news reports, the girl broke her arm and severed her artery. The school’s nurse, using the Stop the Bleed kit her school had received less than 24-hours earlier, applied a tourniquet that the surgeons who treated Lopez credited with saving her life.

Nurse saves student’s life after freak accident at Forsyth County school (fox5atlanta.com)

Uncontrolled bleeding is a major cause of preventative deaths. Approximately 40% of trauma-related deaths worldwide are due to bleeding or its consequences, establishing hemorrhage as the most common cause of preventable death in trauma. (Curry N, Hopewell S, Doree C, Hyde C, Brohi K, Stanworth S. The acute management of trauma hemorrhage: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Crit Care 2011;15(2):R92.)