It takes three minutes to die of blood loss, and five to eight minutes for an ambulance to arrive. It’s a calculus normally restricted to emergency physicians and trauma nurses. But in an era when we face mass shootings, the threat of terrorist attack and so many other types of accidents, the difference between bleeding out and when help can arrive offers an opportunity for everyday people to save lives.

That includes people like those on our editorial board. The Capital Gazette shooting was the latest stark reminder that violence can suddenly intrude into daily life, the workplace and even a newsroom. But that's not to say we can't prepare ourselves to respond in a moment of tragedy. One thing we can all do is learn what it takes to prevent someone from bleeding to death. We can all take a Stop the Bleed class.

Stop the Bleed is a national awareness campaign that aims to transform bystanders into first-responders in a massive bleeding scenario, teaching how to twist a tourniquet and properly pack and press a wound until help arrives. Parkland’s training class — replete with hemostatic gauze and silicone dummies — took less than an hour but left us feeling much more confident that we could stay level-headed and save each other's lives in an emergency. It’s quite the team-building exercise.

No one wants to feel helpless if the unthinkable happens, and Stop the Bleed gives us the tools to fight back. Groups ranging from large companies to a litany of churches and schools have joined trauma professionals in receiving Stop the Bleed training. Parkland’s director of trauma services attested that although the training's lessons apply to scenarios ranging from bike crashes to kitchen mishaps, there's a clear uptick in requests after mass shootings.

Parkland has met its goal of training 5,000 people a year for the last two years through the trauma center’s community outreach. More than 124,000 in the U.S. have received the training.

No one wants to think about dealing with a bleeding emergency, but the only thing more tragic than a bleeding emergency is the knowledge that someone close to you died of a preventable cause. Getting started is as easy as saying aloud two affirmations, drawn from the Stop the Bleed curriculum.

I can save a life.

I can do this.

What you can do

To set up a class for yourself or a group, contact Parkland's team at stopthebleed@phhs.org, or the North Central Texas Trauma Regional Advisory Council at stopthebleed@ncttrac.org. More information about bleeding control can be found here.

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