WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.-- The city of West Palm Beach is training hundreds of employees to help first responders save lives.
It’s part of the Stop the Bleed program developed by the Department of Homeland Security. The goal is to save lives by teaching people how to stop traumatic bleeding.
“We as a city recognize the times that we live in and rather than being passive and just sitting back and crossing our fingers and hoping something doesn’t happen, in the event that something does happen we want to be better prepared and have our employees better prepared,” said Mayor Keith James.
The West Palm Beach Fire Department is spearheading the training for all city employees.
“If someone has a severe bleed they can die within five minutes so it’s important to build confidence and resilience and be able to help,” said Jaime Walker, division chief of EMS West Palm Beach Fire Department.
The three main techniques city employees will learn is to apply pressure with their hands initially, apply pressure with a dressing and lastly use a tourniquet.
In the class the fire department is going to teach city employees how to do all three techniques so they can help first responders and increase the chance of survival for people with injuries.
So far, more than 1,100 city employees have been trained in a active shooter and stop the bleed training. The goal is to get all city employees trained.
Head to Stopthebleed.org for more information.
