ORANGE PARK, Fla. – Uncontrolled bleeding is the No. 1 cause of preventable death from trauma, according to medical professionals.
According to information from Orange Park Medical Center, victims can die within 5-10 minutes if bleeding isn't stopped after a traumatic injury.
Recommended Videos
To help improve the odds for those in their community, the hospital hosted a “Stop the Bleed” event Friday as part of a nationwide effort to teach hands-on lessons that could save lives.
Tom Weidner is alive today because his neighbors learned those lessons and knew how to help him after he was attacked.
Weidner almost bled to death last year after an intruder broke in his home, stabbed him in the arm and nearly sliced off his nose.
“I was very surprised to see the inside of my arm on the outside of my arm,” Weidner recounted during Friday's event. “I was very seriously injured and I was bleeding profusely, and the blood was spurting through my fingers, and at that point I knew I was in trouble.”
Weidner said his neighbors, who happened to be nurses, came to his rescue and used their training to save his life.
One of them had a tourniquet and stopped the bleeding.
But you don't have to be a medical professional to help, because anyone can use a tourniquet if it's available.
Officials with Orange Park Medical Center want tourniquets to be available in public places, and for the community to be educated on how to use them.
“People are resilient. Kids learn how to use their iPhones and iPads at a young age,” Dr. Elias Tsirakoglou said. “I don't think it's unreasonable to just start changing our cultural narrative to have our general public learn these basic steps to help save people's lives.”
Orange Park Medical Center is partnering with Clay and St Johns county schools to train educators and give each school "Stop the Bleed" kits.