To Boost School Safety, Wisconsin School District Buys Wound Kits, Trains Teachers To Control Bleeding

Schools across Wisconsin have used state Department of Justice grants to improve their building security measures, including bullet-resistant glass and intercoms connected to local law enforcement agencies. But schools could also ask for funds to buy kits to control bleeding and at least one school district in the southeastern part of the state hopes to have its teachers trained to use them by the end of January.

Union Grove Elementary School bought more than 70 kits — one for every classroom — and several to keep in big gathering areas, officials said.

“You know, these are things that schools traditionally do not have to think about, but our world is changed and we want to be as prepared, not scared, as we can be,” said Tom Hansen, the school’s assistant principal.

Hansen said administrators were already making security upgrades using the DOJ grants that were announced earlier this year. He said asking the DOJ for funds to buy the kits was common sense.

“The reason you’re putting that glass on is to reduce injuries caused by bullets and if you’re going to have that, then it just seems to make common sense that you would have the materials necessary to deal with the situation if it didn’t get protected or someone did have a flesh wound from it,” he said.

The school’s teachers have until the end of next month to take an hour-long online training where they’ll be taught how to assess and prioritize wounds and help control bleeding until help arrives.

“We know that a person can bleed out in two to four minutes and they may not have had a life-threatening injury, but because the bleeding wasn’t controlled, they actually become a fatality,” said Hansen.

Bob Otter, the CEO of CitizenAID, the company supplying the school, said it can take law enforcement time to secure a school during an attack so paramedics can help victims.

“It’s the gap in time between the time someone’s been injured and the time those paramedics arrive that we fill that gap in empowering the public to act,” Otter said.

The training also teaches staff members how to make a tourniquet out of everyday items in case the kits with the emergency blanket, gauze and shears, are out of reach.

Union Grove isn’t the only school in Wisconsin to use this training. The Regional Trauma Advisory Council in northeast Wisconsin bought licenses to train about 3,000 school staff in the region, Otter said.

While CitizenAID is a company in its first year, the idea of a tool, similar to a first-aid kit for severe wounds, isn’t. These types of kits, which use lessons learned from the military, have been adopted by some law enforcement agencies across the country, including Wisconsin.

A tourniquet can easily be purchased online and other companies, including CitizenAID, sell wound kits with special gauze that help stop hemorrhaging although they typically cost more.

Even so, there are some free aids available online that teach people how to control excessive bleeding in case of emergency. The U.S. Department og Homeland Security has its “Stop the Bleed” campaign, which links to some information.

DOJ officials made funds available for schools to buy the tool in the $100 million the department set aside for school safety training and improvements this year. Still, the DOJ received more than 1,000 applications for portions of the funds.

The number of Wisconsin schools and districts awarded money for these kits isn’t readily available, according to a department spokeswoman.