Verde Valley News – This month, Yavapai College celebrates a full year of training students, staff and community members on a life-saving skill set that prevents severe injuries from becoming fatalities. YC volunteers have trained more than 350 community members on techniques to block and treat catastrophic blood loss, as part of the STOP THE BLEED initiative.
Sponsored by the American College of Surgeons, STOP THE BLEED was initiated by The White House’s National Security Council in 2015. Its purpose is to help citizens save lives by teaching basic actions to stop life-threatening bleeding – the number one cause of preventable death after injury. The training is offered in all 50 states and 155 countries. To date, STOP THE BLEED has held more than 191,000 courses, in-person and online, and trained more than three million people worldwide.
“Yavapai College has offered 18 STOP THE BLEED courses on campus,” YC Associate Biology Professor Josh Schmidt says. “That doesn’t include the additional 17 courses we offered in the community to organizations like the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office; the Northern Arizona Regional Training Academy (NARTA); Yavapai County Jeep Posse Search and the Church of Latter-Day Saints.”
“The course covers how to deal with large bleeding issues, such as arterial bleeds.” He says. STOP THE BLEED training is a single class that takes about 90 minutes: a presentation followed by hands-on practice in applying direct pressure, packing a wound, and proper tourniquet use. On-campus courses are taught in YC’s Community Education classrooms. “We offer the training 100 percent free of charge to anyone who wants to take it.”
YC’s STOP THE BLEED program began with a conversation between Schmidt, YC Police Chief Tyran Payne and former Environmental Health and Safety Manager David Teague. “We wanted to offer more training to our employees.” Schmidt says. “I had been doing a similar class for law enforcement officers and wanted to bring something to the college for citizens.” Teague went to executive leadership and got funding for 25 trauma bleeding control kits to assist.
YC began its STOP THE BLEED trainings in February 2023. Schmidt estimates that more than 200 students have taken the training on-campus, with community classes training an additional 150 – 200 people.
“I want to give a giant thank you to all those that have helped,” he cites YC Athletic trainers Terra Schmidt and Jared Campbell; Chief Payne and the entire YC Police force for their assistance. “I typically coordinate the classes and teach the majority. But often we have more than one student and I need a ratio of one instructor for every ten students. This is when these guys and gals have really stepped up.”
Anyone interested in taking the “Stop the Bleed” training can see a schedule for upcoming classes and register for the free training with Yavapai College’s Community Education office at: www.campusce.net/yc/course/course.aspx?catId=2898
Those interested in finding the next STOP THE BLEED community class can check the national website at: https://cms.bleedingcontrol.org/class/search