‘Stop The Bleed’ training and free kits are on the way to every Renton School

Katherine Bendickson is a registered nurse and the trauma program manager at Valley Medical Center in Renton and she’s on a mission to Stop The Bleed.

After being approved for a grant from Central Region EMS & Trauma Care Council (CREMS) in September, Bendickson has partnered with Valley Medical and the Renton School District to bring free “Stop The Bleed” kits to every school in Renton. The program provides training on how to prevent blood loss from a deep cut or puncture wound.

“Stop The Bleed” was started by a trauma surgeon in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting, which had its 10-year anniversary on Wednesday, Dec. 14.

“People who had died from hemorrhage could have been saved,” said Bendickson. “As it says in one of the slides that I show, ‘the No. 1 cause of the preventable death after injury is bleeding.’”

Since receiving the grant, Bendickson has already trained several schools throughout Renton, including the school district’s transportation department, nurses and administration.

“I am so excited that Valley gets the opportunity to bring ‘Stop the Bleed’ to the Renton School district,” Bendickson said in an email. “My goal is to get training and a kit to all 25 schools!”

On Friday, Dec. 9, Bendickson and her children Michael, 14, and Danika, 11, visited Bryn Mawr Elementary School to provide training to teachers and staff and give them their free “Stop The Bleed” kit.

The training was a total of 40 minutes and split into two parts, with a slide show and then demonstrations of how to stop hemorrhaging. “I train the staff on how to identify life-threatening bleeding, assess the situation and call 911,” Bendickson said. “We put pressure on the wound or pack the wound and then use tourniquets for extremity hemorrhage.”

The presentation featured the steps of what to do to prevent death from bleeding — alert 911, locate where the bleeding is coming from, and to put the correct pressure on the wound.

Bendickson explained that for shallow wounds, you must place gauze (or any other available fabric) onto the wound and then apply pressure until help arrives. For deeper wounds, the gauze or fabric must be packed in first and then covered with pressure applied externally. Lastly, Bendickson explained the dos and don’ts of using a tourniquet to stop bleeding on someone’s limbs.

Once the presentation was finished, Bryn Mawr staff were then able to practice on various models with various wounds. This included deep cuts from yoga blocks that Bendickson and her children had made, life-like boxes with varying depths of puncture wounds, a practice block with a stick poking out of it, two leg dummies used for practicing using the tourniquets, and a “wet wound” tourniquet station over the sink where staff could practice putting on a tourniquet while hypothetical blood could be spurting.

“I thought it was very informative. Getting training like this is so important,” said Bryn Mawr office manager Leighanna Greshock. “We’re much more likely to have broken bones and cuts than anything.”

For more information on “Stop The Bleed” and full information on how to safely stop life-threatening bleeding, visit www.stopthebleed.org and valleymed.org/trauma.

At the “wet wound” station, Michael and Danika help the school staff practice putting a tourniquet on a wound that is spurting blood, using a tube and a bottle of water. Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing.

Leg models with various types of wounds were used to practice using tourniquets. Training dictates that tourniquets should be placed 2-3 inches above the wound. Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing.

A Bryn Mawr staff member practices putting pressure on a wound model. Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing.

This staff member practices putting gauze and pressure around a projectile that’s sticking out of the wound model. Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing.