What Can *I* Do to Save Lives?

Last week, I read a post shared by Renegade Medics on Facebook. The gist is that everyone in a school setting should be trained in trauma management. Does that mean that secretaries, teachers, and custodians need to be paramedic certified? No.

Credit: Renegade Medics

What it means is that a lot of traumatic deaths (in this case, gunshot wounds) are preventable if people are trained to deal with them. It matters not if a person is pro-gun or anti-gun, we all have the ability to save lives.

I am personally fairly comfortable with treating trauma, as I started my "life" in medicine first as an athletic trainer, then an EMT. Though I currently teach Medical Assistants, I'm still fairly comfortable with trauma. I knew that if something happened at work, I'd be okay handling it, but I was being short-sighted. While I could handle it, could others on our campus?

After reading the post by Renegade Medics, I made up my mind to do something about it, because they are right - everyone on campus should be trained. That's something I can do for my campus - staff and students.

I immediately started texting my boss, telling him that I wanted to place a trauma kit in every classroom and that I wanted to do a staff/faculty training to teach everyone how to use it. I'm not looking at making a full trauma kit - there won't be any IV bags, trach kits, etc. It will be a very basic, oh shit bag, with TQs, chest seals, and packing gauze. You know, basically what I carry in my IFAK. One in every classroom, with all staff/faculty members trained will go a long way toward saving lives.

I know, after every big tragedy, we look around and ask, "what can I do?". Well, this is what I can do.

What can you do? Start by getting training yourself. Here's a great place to start: Bleedingcontrol.org
Look for free classes near you. Or, if you're an instructor, sign up to teach free classes.