WELLS — Faculty and staff members at Wells High School hosted a Stop the Bleed training on Oct. 10 presented by trauma staff from Maine Medical Center.

The keynote speaker was Dr. David Ciraulo, a trauma surgeon, who told participants that Stop the Bleed training is a bleeding control education program to provide ordinary citizens with the skills to save lives from severe bleeding resulting from everyday accidents to terrorism.

The program presented at the school fulfilled one of the recommendations of the American College of Surgeons’ Hartford Consensus to educate the public about bleeding control.

According to bleedingcontrol.org; “In April 2013, just a few months after  the active shooter disaster on Dec. 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the Joint Committee to Create a National Policy to Enhance Survivability from Intentional Mass Casualty and Active Shooter Events was convened by the American College of Surgeons in collaboration with the medical community and representatives from the federal government, the National Security Council, the U.S. military, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and governmental and nongovernmental emergency medical response organizations, among others.”

Another speaker at the school from Maine Medical was Injury Prevention Educator Kathy Andreasen. Both she and Ciraulo spoke about using Power Point presentations and demonstrations of applying tourniquets.

In addition Doris Laslie, a registered nurse and another Maine Medical educator, was also in attendance at the training session and joined Wells High School nurse Pat Endsley, who helped organize the seminar.

Following the presentations, teachers and other staff practiced correct tourniquet application as well as effective wound packing.

Ciraulo pointed out that many bleeding emergencies may be effectively controlled by trained citizen responders in the community.

Last February, Wells High School hosted York County school nurses for a STB training and, as a result, many school districts including Wells-Ogunquit CSD are implementing bleeding control training district-wide.