Nearly 1,200 school employees in east and central Illinois have been trained on how to stop life-threatening bleeding since last year.
Carle Foundation Hospital's trauma department is offering the national Stop the Bleed campaign training to schools in a 21-county area of east-central Illinois. The hospital is equipping all 302 public school buildings with medical supplies kits to help stop bleeding.
The campaign was launched by the White House in 2015 as a national preparedness initiative to share life-saving techniques used by the military and emergency responders with the public. The campaign came in the wake the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
The hour-long training teaches a medical response that bystanders can use to save lives in the critical first minutes after a trauma injury that causes bleeding.