Fredericksburg City schools hosts Stop the Bleed training

Jun 27, 2023

Deputy Jeff Phillips with the Fredericksburg Sheriff’s Office applies a tourniquet on Debra White, a math para at Hugh Mercer Elementary.

Janett Prohaska, an ESOL para at Hugh Mercer Elementary, applies a tourniquet to Georgie Athenry, a lieutenant with the Fredericksburg Fire Department.

Debra White applies a tourniquet to Janie Bundrant during Stop the Bleed training at James Monroe High School on Thursday.

Fredericksburg City Public Schools has purchased Stop the Bleed kits for every classroom in the division, and more than 200 employees attended training this week to learn how to use them.

“We are teaching people how to immediately respond to bleeding,” said Georgie Athenry, a lieutenant with the Fredericksburg Fire Department. “We are first responders, but you are immediate responders, and immediate responders save lives.”

Athenry led the training sessions along with Mike Athenry, a lieutenant in the Fredericksburg Police Department. Members of Mary Washington Hospital’s trauma team and the Fredericksburg Sheriff’s Office also helped present the training.

Together, the team taught 12 classes over four days for City school employees this week.

Jessica King, a trauma performance improvement specialist with Mary Washington Hospital, said members of her team went to a conference in 2016 where they learned about Stop the Bleed, which is now an international program that teaches people how to treat life-threatening bleeding.

The team has led countless trainings in the Fredericksburg area since then, but this is the first time the class has been taught in a public school, Mike Athenry said.

“Fredericksburg City schools has really set its employees up for success by putting a kit in every classroom,” he said, noting that the kits can cost about $200.

The average national response time to a 911 call is between seven and 10 minutes, Georgie Athenry said. Fredericksburg City has two ambulances on call and it could take one of them between five and seven minutes to arrive at one of the schools from the station.

However, if both are in use, it could take between 10 and 12 minutes for an ambulance to arrive from Stafford or Spotsylvania.

A person can bleed to death in two to five minutes, meaning swift action on the part of people who are on the scene can truly save a life.

“Arm and leg wounds are identified as the leading cause of preventable death in trauma cases,” Georgia Athenry told class participants. “Bleeds can be treated with direct pressure, tourniquets and wound packing.”

Participants learned how, when and where to apply a tourniquet and practiced how to put a tourniquet on themselves and on a partner. They also learned how and when to pack a wound, apply direct pressure to a wound and apply a chest seal.

The school division is making safety and security a top priority, deputy superintendent Matt Eberhardt said at the School Board’s July meeting.

He described the division’s safety plans as ongoing and multilayered, involving constant dialogue and collaboration with Fredericksburg City staff, law enforcement and first responders.

Safety will also be the topic of the sixth Superintendent Community Roundtable, which will take place this month.

Adele Uphaus: 540/735-1973

[email protected]

@flsadele

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