Stop the Bleed featured in The New Yorker

The genesis and continual efforts of the Stop the Bleed^® initiative were recently featured in an extensive article by Paige Williams that has been posted online and was published in the April 8 print edition of The New Yorker. The article, which outlines the worsening severity of mass shootings in the U.S. and the need to train the public in bleeding control techniques, includes comments from Lenworth M. Jacobs, Jr., MD, MPH, FACS, Medical Director, American College of Surgeons (ACS) Stop the Bleed program, and a member of the ACS Board of Regents.

“Four months after Sandy Hook, Jacobs convened a small group of physicians, military leaders, and law-enforcement officials—including representatives of the F.B.I. and the Department of Defense—at Hartford Hospital [CT]. The group became known as the Hartford Consensus,” Ms. Willams reports. “Thirteen days after the Hartford Consensus first met, explosive devices filled with nails and ball bearings detonated near the crowded finish line of the Boston Marathon…. The marathon attack confirmed the Hartford Consensus’s view: people would instantly help one another during a crisis, even when the injuries were almost unbearable to see, much less to touch. The real first responders were bystanders.”

The article highlights the organic nature of the Stop the Bleed initiative, in which instructors can train people who, in turn, can become instructors themselves. Training sessions are being held in many different venues around the country, including schools, churches, and community centers.

The New Yorker article appears at an opportune time, published prior to the first National Stop the Bleed Month in May, and the second annual National Stop the Bleed Day, May 23. For more information, visit bleedingcontrol.org.