Anyone can learn to Stop the Bleed. Be prepared to save a life.

National Stop the Bleed Day – now in its 5th year, is currently one of the largest public health initiatives in the United States. The campaign aims to directly save lives through an effort to increase public awareness and encourage people and organizations across the United States to get trained with life-saving Stop the Bleed techniques, so they can be ready to take action and stop everyday instances of life-threatening bleeding in their homes and communities.

Experts say it takes approximately 3-5 minutes to die from blood loss and 7-10 minutes is the average EMS response time.

“Before a trauma patient arrives at our hospital, anything a community member can do at the scene of an accident to control blood loss makes the person’s chance of survival much greater,” said Dr. Pedro Gonzalez, medical director of trauma at Delray Medical Center.  “Tragedy can strike when you least expect it, and we encourage everyone to join us and learn how you can become a properly equipped and trained bystander.”

“Anyone can attend one of our easy trainings and be ready to save someone’s life – a friend, a family member, a colleague, or the person next to you – whether you know them or not,” said Dr. Robert Borrego, medical director of trauma at St. Mary’s Medical Center. “The number one cause of preventable death after an injury is bleeding, and we want to empower our community to be able to make a life or death difference when faced with injuries from a serious accident.”

As Level I Trauma Centers, both Delray Medical Center and St. Mary’s Medical Center offer the highest level of care available, and are the only trauma centers in Palm Beach County. Both hospitals are part of the Palm Beach Health Network (PBHN), which comprises six hospitals and care centers spanning Palm Beach County, and is the largest healthcare network in the area. Our trauma teams utilize the Stop the Bleed program to educate the community on how to save lives by providing free training courses.

Stop the Bleed is critically important because incidents like mass shootings or natural disasters, along with everyday accidents, whether on the playground, the freeway, or in the kitchen could put people at risk of bleeding out. People must become aware of this because in many cases, death from blood loss is preventable.

Stop the Bleed is a course that is designed to teach non-medically trained community members how to control bleeding until professional help arrives. In the Stop the Bleed course, community members learn three quick techniques to save lives before someone bleeds out:

1. How to use your hands to apply pressure to a wound
2. How to pack a wound to control bleeding
3. How to correctly apply a tourniquet

StoptheBleed.org says that more than 1.5 million people have now been trained to Stop the Bleed, but that’s just a start. Their goal is to train 200 million. Why? Because the purpose of the Stop the Bleed campaign is to make our nation more resilient by better preparing the public to save lives if people nearby are severely bleeding. The hospitals are hosting the following Stop the Bleed events:

St. Mary’s Medical Center:

5/5 5-6:30pm
6/2 5-6:30pm

Go to St. Mary’s Medical Center events page.

Stop the Bleed is a national public health initiative with support from public and private sector organizations and individuals committed to saving lives. The initiative is supported by over 100 organizations including the United States Department of Defense, American College of Surgeons, United States Department of Homeland Security, Stop the Bleeding Coalition, and American Red Cross.