District 91 staff learns to ‘Stop the Bleed’
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IDAHO FALLS — Hopefully local teachers and administrators are never in a position where they need to care for the wounds of children.
But if it happens, staff in Idaho Falls School District 91 are now prepared. On Tuesday, teachers, and administrators at Linden Park Elementary School received instruction on how to stop bleeding in case of a serious injury. Linden Park was the last of the district’s 18 schools to receive the training.
The instruction is part of the Stop the Bleed program, an hour-long course taught by Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center trainers. The focus of the course is training people to recognize if a wound is life-threatening and how to stem bleeding using pressure and medical supplies.
District staff worked with tourniquets and gauze to bandage pink foam noodles with faux wounds. They instructed teachers to first call 911, identify the type of wound, and then stop the bleeding using compression and/or a tourniquet.
The district started training staff in September as part of an overall push toward a safer district, D91 Safety Coordinator Rebecca Chidester said.
“A lot of our staff have been exposed to first aid and CPR training, and this is just one more piece toward having a safer school,” Chidester said. “Part of our mission is to make better citizens and this is a piece of that too.”
As part of the program, EIRMC donated 1,003 safety kits — two per classroom — to the district and dozens of tourniquets. The donations cost more than $14,000, EIRMC spokeswoman Coleen Niemann said.
Niemann said they plan on teaching the course in Bonneville Joint School District 93 soon.