Today I was required to attend a Stop the Bleed training for school. I am on the Emergency Response Team and they wanted to train all of us on the new procedures. I was not looking forward to this training because I had a feeling that it was basic first aid type stuff. I used to be a Certified Athletic Trainer, an Emergency Medical Technician-Basic, and a first aid instructor for the American Red Cross. I thought for sure that this would be things that I already knew. I was correct in that it was stuff I already knew, but it wasn’t the basic first aid that I thought it would be instead it was on how to use a tourniquet and pack a wound. Now a long time ago, tourniquet use was taught in American Red Cross first aid courses but because people were using them incorrectly they stopped teaching the use of tourniquets. It was better to use direct pressure and a pressure point. Now it seems that pressure points are no longer recommended because people don’t know how to use them correctly (the same reason tourniquets were removed many years ago). There truly is nothing new under the sun.
Musings of an old English teacher 