GRMC donates 20 bleeding control stations to GISD

Graham Regional Medical Center donated 20 bleeding control stations to Graham ISD Tuesday to bring the district in compliance with state law under House Bill 496 passed in the recent 86th Legislative Session.

Under HB 496, school districts and open-enrollment charter schools are required to possess bleeding control stations stored in easily accessible areas of the campus, required to train for staff regarding bleeding control stations and must annually offer instruction from a school resource officer or other trained personnel on the use of the station for students enrolled in seventh grade or higher.

“With the enactment of Texas House Bill 496, it is going to be mandatory in all schools to have bleeding control stations and also education for all the teachers, so we (Graham Regional Medical Center) have kind of adopted the Stop the Bleed initiative to try to get it to all of the community, not just the schools, but churches and anybody who will have us,” GRMC Emergency Department Director Enoc Espinoza said.

The Stop the Bleed national awareness campaign was started in 2015 by the White House to encourage bystanders in an emergency event to be trained and equipped to help with bleeding before first responders arrive, according to EMS.gov. Espinoza contacted GISD School Safety Director Tom Lewis to see how the hospital could make the service available for the district.

“He has been really good about helping us get in and then we got together and decided make these bleeding control stations for the school,” Espinoza said.

The setups look similar to a defibrillator station and will be placed around the district at each campus, Lewis said.

“Most of them will be in the high school and junior high and each elementary school will have, I think, it is going to be a minimum of three, so most of them will be up here (at the high school) and at the junior high,” he said. “Statistically, that is where most things happen at that age group.”

The stations are required by law to contain tourniquets approved for use in battlefield trauma care by the U.S. armed forces, chest seals, compression bandages, bleeding control bandages, space emergency blankets, latex-free gloves, markers, scissors and instructional information which was developed by the American College of Surgeons or the United State Department of Homeland Security regarding blood loss in a traumatic event.

Espinoza and Lewis said they are providing the state-required training for teachers at the campuses first before moving onto to training the students in the future.

“We will have all of the teachers (training) knocked out after Monday, so all of the teachers will have the training and bought into the system,” Lewis said. “They have taken great interest in it and it is turned out to be a really good thing not only for them (first responders), but for us at Graham ISD.”

For the rest of the story, see the Saturday, Oct. 12 edition of The Graham Leader.