Children’s Miracle Network, Sacred Heart team up to distribute trauma kits

SPOKANE, Wash. — With a $29,000 grant from Children’s Miracle Network, nurses and doctors at Sacred Heart Medical Center are packing “Stop the Bleed” bags full of medical supplies necessary for immediate trauma response.

“The idea is that if you are in a significant accident have significant bleeding is that its the guy or girl standing next to you that stops the bleeding,” said Dr. Tim Bax, Trauma Medical Director and General Surgeon at Sacred Heart.

The trauma kits will have gauze, gloves, and first aid instructions, in addition to a sharpie and tourniquet.

“If you have a significant vascular injury to an extremity and you show up to the hospital with a tourniquet you are six times less likely to die,” he said.

He says the first thing you want to do in attempting to stop a bleed, is to put pressure on the wound.

“Most wounds will stop bleeding with direct pressure,” he said. “If you have a wound that is deep and blood is coming from the depth of the wound, packing it with gauze is helpful.”

He says for injuries near joints or that are hard to manage, its best to apply a tourniquet.

“If you can there is still a pulse after applying it,” he said, “its not tight enough.”

Having spent more than 20 years in an operating room, Bax knows well that getting or not getting immediate care can make or break a successful surgery when a trauma patient comes into the operating room.

“I would love to see a stop the bleed kit hanging right next to the defibrillator everywhere there is one in the community,” he said.

He said the “Stop the Bleed” program was born out of the tragedy at Sandy Hook, but with Freeman so close to home he said the importance of the packs can’t be overstated. He’d know, he was the one that oversaw the hospital’s trauma response to the school shooting.

“By the time we heard there was a shooting at Freeman, by the time the first child got to this institution, there were eight surgeons ready, there were 10 operating room, and 40 nurses available to care for these people,” he said.

With that in mind, he said the hospital is staying busy packing up and beginning to distribute the trauma kits.

“All around the city, schools, malls and airports,” he said, “all over the place.”

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