GRMC donates 300 tourniquets to area first responders

Graham Regional Medical Center donated tourniquet kits to eight first responder departments within Young County last Friday as a continuation in their efforts to promote the Stop the Bleed initiative.

The Stop the Bleed initiative at GRMC started in Feb. 2019 and the nationwide 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. The idea for the distribution to first responders came from within EMS, according to Shelly Walls, GRMC Director of Medical/Surgical Department.

“Enoc Espinoza, the director of the emergency department, and myself along with Kayla Ellis were teaching internally here to the employees a Stop the Bleed class and Enoc’s brother happens to be a DPS officer and so he was explaining to (the class) that he taught his brother how to use the tourniquet a few weeks prior to and he had given him a tourniquet,” Walls said. “And so, it came to be known by the employee that (with) first responders this is not a standard issue piece of equipment that they are issued.”

Walls said once the employees of GRMC found out about first responders not being equipped with a tourniquet kit, they worked to make it a possibility in the area.

“(They) were very surprised and were really moved and wanted to do something to be able to provide those to our first responders,” she said. “So they asked, and took it to our administrator and took it to the board of directors to see if we could do an employee fund drive.”

Walls said through the drive, employees of GRMC raised enough to donate 300 tourniquets between the eight departments which were Graham Fire Department, Graham Police Department, Young County Sheriff’s Office, Loving Volunteer Fire Department, Newcastle Volunteer Fire Department, Salt Creek Volunteer Fire Department, Murray Volunteer Fire Department and the Eliasville Volunteer Fire Department. Espinoza said the kits are extremely important for first responders to have on hand.

“Typically tourniquets were (…) always in favor during wartime, but they kind of fell out of favor for years,” Espinoza said. “(…) I think since 2012, they have started gaining in popularity, just because of the shootings and just all of the things that have been going on (like) the Boston bombings. Typically if people are hurt and a major artery or something is bleeding out, they can bleed out within three to five minutes, so if we can get these tourniquets to these guys that are first on scene they can stop that bleeding and we can save them.”

For the full story, see the Saturday, Jan. 25 edition of The Graham Leader.