Hello,
My name is Braxton Morrison. I am emailing in regards to an initiative I started last year to put a bleeding control kit in every classroom in every school in the state of Iowa. Some of you I have spoken with at length, others briefly and some I have not spoken with at all. This is going to be a long email, but I want to get everyone on the same page. This initiative died down with COVID at the beginning of the year, but if we can go back to school and do all of the other things going on in the world, we can take care of our children.
There are a lot of people in on this email including; physicians, surgeons, Department of Education staff, Iowa State Education Association, School Administrators of Iowa, various school districts staff, Iowa Police Officer's Association, Department of Public Safety, Iowa School Resource Officer Association, Iowa Firefighter Association, IEMSA and EMS personnel from ground and air agencies, public safety communications, teachers, the Iowa Nursing Association, and Iowa School Nurses Association, Iowa Emergency Management Association, Department of Public Health, County Public Health Reps, Department of Homeland Security, Iowa Parent Teacher Association, among various other people and agencies.
This is who it will take to accomplish this initiative.
I want to start by saying, I know everyone in this email has the same common goal, to keep our children as safe as possible. This is an initiative that is well within our control and will improve their safety and wellness should a catastrophic event happen. We force our kids to go to school making this our responsibility to find a way to come to a conclusion on how to execute this initiative.
My background is as a Veteran of the United States Army, Certified Iowa Law Enforcement Officer, Critical Care Paramedic, Certified Tactical Paramedic, Tactical Combat Casualty Care Instructor, Stop the Bleed Instructor and Ambassador, National Stop the Bleed Month Iowa Coordinator and EMS educator. I also hold a master's degree in emergency management and various certifications and training in emergency management, firefighting, and hazardous materials.
I tell you my background because I am either actively working, have worked, am certified or have experienced virtually every area of emergency services. If a catastrophic event were to occur at our children's school(s), the few (maybe even 1) responding ambulance(s) per how many children in the first two minutes, will not be enough to save multiple children and staff who are hemorrhaging from a traumatic injury.
If you are unfamiliar with Stop the Bleed, it is a program that began after the tragic Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. A local trauma surgeon reviewed autopsy records from the victims and with that, formed a group known as the Hartford Consensus. This group determined that many of the victims died of traumatic injuries such as hemorrhaging that could have been prevented by lay responders with minimal training and supplies. Long story short, Stop the Bleed was formed. If you would like more information please click this link:Â https://www.stopthebleed.org/our-story.
I do not want another school, another student, or another family to have to use the term, "Could have been prevented" from something again.
What is in a Stop the Bleed kit?
Combat Application Tourniquet
(2) compressed gauze packs
Pressure dressing
Scissors
Hypothermia blanket
Instructions
This allows a very minimally trained lay responder to administer immediate life-threatening care that the patient would otherwise die from in minutes. These injuries include; severe extremity hemorrhage, junctional (neck, armpits, groin) hemorrhage, shock and the plastic from some of these wrappings can even be used to treat a chest injury if needed. The scissors allow for the interventions to be done on direct skin-to-skin contact and the hypothermia blanket can aid in preventing the patient from going into shock.
Do these things expire? Not really.
We purposefully are not putting in items that expire to keep this as a one time cost. These items being in sealed kits, in a temperature-controlled environment is much different than the wear and tear they get being thrown around in a soldier's pocket.
What if a kit needs to be used?
1. Won't you be glad we had them?
2. I previously spoke with the Iowa Parent Teacher Association who stated they may agree to replace any kits that may ever need to be used. I am hoping they are still agreeable to that.
If not, I will do it.
Where do we put these?
As stated, this initiative is to place a kit in every room of every school in the State. Why? A few different reasons:
You never know where you are going to be when a traumatic incident occurs. Kits in the lunchroom are useless to someone on a different floor or at the other end of the school.
In the event of an active threat situation, school's policies are to go on "Lockdown" If an intruder is harming people and no one can move to the lunchroom or "common area" to access a kit, again useless.
We are no stranger to devastating weather in Iowa, obviously the Derecho just proved that. Vinton-Shellsburg school for example, has 3 different wings that branch off of a hub, in the hub is a large Stop the Bleed kit. If access is blocked to that hub, the kits are again useless.
My biggest point is potentially this: should an event occur, you will have every possible responder in a 25 - 50 mile radius coming to help; EMS is useless without tools, cops are useless without guns, firefighters are useless without their firehose. Not literally, but you get my point. We must have the tools we need to do our jobs. If you have 30 kids with traumatic injuries due to whatever cause and not enough supplies to treat them.. all of those people are not doing much good. The mass casualty trailer in your County isn't going to be there in time. I promise.
Well, responders are quick in our area. Do the research for yourself on average response time, average active threat event time and how long it can take someone to bleed out. We often see "2 minutes" as the minimum time for someone to bleed out. Truth is, from a severe traumatic injury or injuries, we can loose enough blood in as little as 30 seconds to have the potential to not matter if an intervention is done or not. This is called irreversible shock for obvious reasons. Quick note Notice how I used multiple examples of when these kits may need utilized and not just an "Active Shooter". There are much more likely situations, such as a tornado, but we can do one thing to prepare for many. Cost The question everyone wants to know, how much is this going to cost? I have broken this down into a few different quotes based on the previous paragraphs. We have 1,390 schools in the state and an average of 50 classrooms per school (according to Senate Education Committee Chair Amy Sinclair. The trauma kits being looked range from $40 - $46/per kit:
$40 kit - $2,780,000
$46 kit - $3,197,000
What many schools have done, is placed large 8-pack kits in common areas such as gymnasiums, auditoriums and lunchrooms. I agree with this as well. Here is the cost of that at $514.98/per kit for (2) kits for 1,390 schools:
$1,431,644,40
Total cost for 1 individual kit per classroom for 1,390 schools in the state of Iowa on an average of 50 classrooms per school and (2) large 8-pack kits per school is:
($40 kit) - $4,211,644,40
($46 kit) - $4,628,644,40
*Some of the schools in Iowa have also done this already whether it be kits in common areas or one in every classroom. We likely would not need this many. *I am also not suggesting we do this at one time necessarily. A million a year over 4 years, for example. I mean, we just formed a new bureau under DPS for response training to active events that wanted 3 million to start and million a year to sustain. We can fund this. How do we distribute these? Two options:
The state is already broken down to Emergency Management regions
I would be very surprised if there was not a county EMS association not willing to assist in this
Who does all of this training?
Again, I would be surprised if EMS associations would not. If there was an area that could not find training, I will go do it personally.
The training is FREE.
You can view a similar example to the proposed kits here:
Individual kit:Â https://www.narescue.com/military-products/public-access-bleeding-control/d-bcrk-individual-bleeding-control-kits-nylon.html
8-Pack:Â https://www.narescue.com/military-products/public-access-bleeding-control/d-bcrk-bleeding-control-8-pack-stations-nylon.html
I will wrap up and leave you with this. Trauma is the leading cause of death in ages 1 - 44. Cardiac arrest is not, but we have AED's everywhere. I urge you to consider this and a way we can make it happen as a community and a state. Please forward to anyone you think may be able to assist in these efforts and don't hesitate to contact me with any questions.
Thank you so much for your time.
Braxton Morrison, NRP, CCP, TP-C
Phone: 319-521-5154
Email:Â braxton.morrison91@gmail.com