ORLANDO – As Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) students head back to the classrooms, School Emergency Response Teams will return to campuses trained to Stop the Bleed. The Level One Trauma Center at Orlando Health Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC) has completed the training for 214 School Emergency Response Teams, preparing 1,916 OCPS employees for bleeding emergencies.
“Bleeding is the leading cause of death after injury,” said Sheryl Aldaronodo, BSN, RN, Trauma and Burn Injury Prevention Coordinator, Trauma Program, Orlando Health ORMC. “Learning to control bleeding is essential for bystanders who are already on the scene and may be the only chance people have to survive before Emergency Medical Services arrives.”
Natural disasters, or mass shootings and other man-made disasters in communities can quickly turn into bleeding emergencies.
Stop the Bleed training includes discussions, demonstrations, and hands-on practice of the ABCs of responding to bleeding emergencies: A for Alert, call 9-1-1; B for Bleeding, find the bleeding injury; and C for Compress, apply pressure by various techniques including a tourniquet or packing the wound.
The training is part of the Level One Trauma Center’s commitment to providing trauma prevention education to the community.
“Being a level I trauma center is more than providing acute trauma care, it includes educating the community about injury prevention and responding to emergencies,” said Tracy R. Zito, MD, trauma medical director, Orlando Health ORMC. “Stop the Bleed techniques help get people who could possibly die from major bleeding to the trauma center alive. This is where we, your trauma team, can take over and provide the interventions that translate to survival. If they don’t get to us in the trauma center, we cannot save them.”
Orlando Health has a longstanding partnership in providing bleeding control training to OCPS — the eighth largest school district in the country and fourth largest in the state.
“Orange County Public Schools is so appreciative of the partnership with Orlando Health. It has provided valuable life-saving training for staff on how to use the Stop the Bleed techniques,” said Rowland Welch, Director, OCPS Occupational Safety and Health. “It is extremely important for employees to have the awareness and tools to respond in case of an injury on or off campus before the arrival of first responders.”
In July 2023, Orlando Health provided Stop the Bleed training during OCPS during their Safety Preparedness Days at Horizon High School.
In January 2020 and January 2023, Orlando Health provided Stop the Bleed training to Boone High School’s Academy of Health Science and Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, as part of the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma’s community outreach program.
Prior to the SERT training initiative, Orlando Health trained more than 1,000 OCPS bus drivers in 2018.
Since the Stop the Bleed community launch in February 2017, Orlando Health has conducted more than 370 training sessions to more than 9,200 participants including community residents and groups from various sectors such as law enforcement; leisure, sport, and tourism; education; energy and utilities; and health care.
Orlando Health continues to offer community classes to build awareness and preparedness to help save lives when the need arises. More information is available at www.orlandohealth.com/stopthebleed.
The Stop the Bleed national awareness campaign and a call to action was launched in 2015 by the White House to provide the general public with the awareness, knowledge and tools necessary to help stop uncontrolled bleeding and help save lives.
