Training For Trauma Emergencies

As the saying goes, good things come in small packages and in this case it means saving a life. As News 25’s Kristen Durand reports, the Mississippi Coastal Trauma Care Region has come up with a way to help officers take immediate action should they find themselves bleeding out.
Police put their lives on the line every day and if they are injured time is critical. Knowing what to do while waiting on back up can mean the difference between life and death. Lead instructor Dr. Perry Walton said, “Different types of bleeding are arterial venous, and capillary, arterial bleeding is bright red bleeding that spurts out very quickly and that can kill you in about three minutes.”
That’s just one reason why a team with the Mississippi Coastal Trauma Care Region joined officers at the Ocean Springs Police Department to arm them with kits full of materials to help stop bleeding, as well as knowledge on how to use them. Ocean Springs Police Chief Mark Dunston said, ” As you know there are a lot of assaults on police officers in the United States and of course there are a lot of active shooter situations that we respond to and not only will these wound care kits and the tourniquet kits and training be helpful for officers on self wound care, but also when they come up on a shooting victim or a stabbing victim in a situation like that.”
The first kits were given out to Mississippi Highway Patrol Officers. They were quickly put to use. Director of Mississippi Coastal Trauma Care Region Gail Thomas said, “Recently there was an incident and a highway patrol officer was able to save his own life after being shot in the leg with one of these tourniquets.”
Over the next few weeks the Mississippi Trauma Care System for our region will be providing this training to several law enforcement agencies along the coast.
They say it’s their goal to get one of these kits into the hands of every officer in the state. “Our law enforcement is our priority, they are the good guys, they do a lot for us and we want to give back. Make sure they’re taken care of,” said Thomas.