Stop the Bleed, Save a Life

Stop the Bleed training includes how to apply tourniquets, which came back into favor after they led to positive outcomes during military conflicts. © Mulderphoto – stock.adobe.com

Three quick actions are all it takes to control severe bleeding.

By: Maureen Paraventi

One of your employees was struck by a lift truck and is bleeding heavily. 911 has been called and another employee is waiting by the facility’s entrance, to direct the EMTs quickly to the injured man. You are applying pressure, but the bleeding continues. Are you doing enough? Are you doing the right things?

Three quick actions are all it takes to control severe bleeding in someone who’s injured – and possibly save their life. That’s the basis of Stop the Bleed; an initiative aimed at training people in all walks of life – including workplaces – to stop life-threatening bleeding following emergencies and man-made and natural disasters.

A person can die from severe blood loss in less than five minutes, according to Dr. Craig Goolsby, a member of the American Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council. “On average, it takes seven to ten minutes for first responders to arrive on scene,” notes Goolsby.¹ In suburban and rural areas, it can take longer.

Trauma experts estimate that thousands of lives could be saved every year with improved access to trauma care. That includes having adequate bleeding control applied at the scene of injury, which is what Stop the Bleed addresses.

The Stop the Bleed campaign was initiated by a federal interagency workgroup convened by the National Security Council (NSC), following a January 2025 National Security Presidential Memorandum recognizing the NSC and its subcommittees. This collaborative effort was led by the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS COT) to bring knowledge of bleeding control to the public and build national resilience. Advances made by military medicine and research in hemorrhage control during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been leveraged to benefit the general public.²

RESPONDING TO BLEEDING EMERGENCIES

The program teaches people to safely respond to bleeding emergencies with three methods:

1. Calling emergency personnel and ensuring the scene is safe
2. Applying direct pressure to the wound and packing it with gauze or clothing
3. Applying a tourniquet if appropriate.

The last step is one which may not be among the strategies known to many people tasked with administering first aid on-site. The use of tourniquets was discontinued for a time out of concern that it could lead to permanent injury. However, after tourniquets and tourniquet training were used during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, “a clear survival benefit was identified,” according to the American College of Surgeons (ACS), which has trained more than five million people to Stop the Bleed and is a distributor of bleeding control kits.³ What also became evident was the critical role of the bystander, and the need to train non-medical professionals to control bleeding.

The 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT was also an impetus in developing ways to improve survival rates for people with severe bleeding. Local and national trauma surgeons and other experts met in the wake of that tragedy and developed recommendations that contributed to the body of knowledge used for Stop the Bleed.

Partners in the Stop the Bleed program include the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, Combat Casualty Care Research Program, U.S. Fire Administration, FEMA and Tactical Combat Casualty Care.

ABOUT THE TRAINING

In addition to the ACS, Stop the Bleed courses and bleeding control kits are offered by a variety of companies and organizations, including the American Red Cross. An online course will help you find training that is near your location.

The ACS says the methods taught in Stop the Bleed are simple enough for everyone to learn and effective in helping control bleeding until emergency personnel arrive. The organization rolled out an updated version earlier this year that facilitates training among people of all backgrounds, cultures, and languages by providing a more image-based course that relies less on text.⁴ Most courses are 90 minutes long or less. They begin with a formal presentation, which is followed by hands-on practice. Attendees learn how to apply direct pressure, pack a wound and use a tourniquet to stop bleeding.

ABOUT KITS

Bleeding control kits may contain some or all of the following:

• Tourniquet
• Compressed gauze
• Emergency trauma dressing (used to cover a wound and help apply pressure after a wound has been packed with gauze)
• Trauma shears to cut off clothing quickly
• Gloves
• Chest seal for penetrating chest wounds
• Hypothermia blanket
• Hemostatic gauze which helps with clotting

Where to Place Kits

The ACS recommends that kits with supplies to control bleeding should be placed in prominent positions throughout the workplace, ideally alongside automated external defibrillators (AEDs) or other first aid kits.

• If your facility is a large one, position kits evenly throughout it so that no one has to go too far to reach one.
• Ensure that employees know where bleeding control kits are located.
• Add bleeding control kit locations to your facility’s emergency plans.
• Schedule annual inspections of the kits. Replace expired or damaged items, or those which were used during an incident. WMHS