Our Blog: Equipping & Empowering

If you work for a school in the state of South Carolina, or you have a child who attends one, you are probably well aware of the law that was passed last year, requiring all public schools to hold two active shooter drills per year.

Doing the drill is not up for debate, but every public school has some flexibility in the approach it chooses to take in fulfilling the requirement. This flexibility is meant to ensure that every school selects an active shooter training program that best meets its unique needs, but for school principals and other decision makers, that's a lot of responsibility to take on.

What if the drill isn't helpful? What if it scares students and staff? What if it's an absolute mess? What if...

PRESS RELEASE

Greenville, SC April 11, 2019 – ProActive Response Group, a local organization that provides Active Shooter Response Training to schools, companies, religious establishments, and industrial facilities, has received official recognition by SLED for its training curriculum, which is compliant with SLED standards. ProActive Response Group is the first organization in the state of South Carolina to hold this privilege. 

Stopping the bleed is essential to saving lives during an active shooter event or any other type of emergency. But bleeding isn't the only sign of a serious injury, and it certainly is not the only type of injury you could encounter after an act of violence. 

In order to treat injuries, you must also know how to identify them. In this article, we'll address three types of traumatic injuries that don't require bleeding control, but that do require the attention of a first responder like yourself.

If you ever find yourself in an emergency situation, whether it's an active shooter event at work or a car accident on the interstate, we cannot emphasize enough the importance of a fast response. 

Sadly, there are a lot of myths floating around out there that can squelch a civilian first responder's confidence and even hinder their ability to provide life-saving medical treatment. We want to debunk those myths in hopes of empowering you to take action, respond, and save lives.

Many people go through their entire lives and never have to provide emergency medical treatment to save someone's life. But what if tomorrow you're driving home from the grocery store or to your son's soccer game, and you witness a serious car accident?

Obviously, you call 911, check to see the severity of injuries or if everyone is okay.

But what else do you do if they're not? In this situation, you're the first responder;  what can you do to help until EMTs arrive?

Tourniquets like the CAT (Combat Application Tourniquet) have been around for decades, but the conception of tourniquet application was invented long before that. 

It's no surprise, then, that over such an extensive timeline, rules about applying tourniquets have changed in ways big and small. Each tweak of the process and adjustment to protocol has been the result of dedicated research and testing, and we can therefore confidently adhere to the changes knowing that we are providing the best emergency medical response that we are capable of providing in that moment.

Any time information changes, confusion can form and misinformation can spread. Many times, people fail to realize anything has changed at all. To squelch some of the confusion, we're addressing some commonly overlooked or unknown best practices for tourniquet application.

It’s one thing to put a tourniquet on a 195-pound adult – it’s quite another to put a tourniquet on a child.

Or is it?

Many people are terrified by the thought of treating a child or an infant suffering from severe bleeding or another life-threatening injury, but for anyone who ever finds themselves in that situation, a few moments of hesitation could reduce a child’s chances of survival.

While we typically spend a great deal of time speaking about responding to workplace violence or school shootings, there are many workplace injuries that occur unrelated to acts of violence or active shooter scenarios. 

Manufacturing and industrial facilities are accident-prone to say the least, and with forklifts, heavy crates, and assembly line equipment, risk is ever present. 

If you are thinking "It would never happen at my facility," you're wrong. Rather than passively hoping for the best, it's time to be proactive about facing potential injuries at your industrial facility.

First aid kits have their place — like maybe when you get a paper cut or tear a hangnail — but the bandaids and antiseptic wipes in your basic first aid kit will not stop severe bleeding or help you treat any other kind of life-threatening injury.

It's time to increase your preparedness. Instead of preparing for basic first aid, train for emergency medical response, especially bleed control. After all, if you're ready to effectively handle the big things, then responding to the little things like minor incisions are second nature. Everybody wins when you're prepared to respond to severe hemorrhage but only have to clean up a scraped knee on the playground.

Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it, they say. That couldn't be more true in the context of medical kits. Let's look at 5 specific items you should always have in your emergency medical kit.

Situational awareness is important for everyone — every teacher, student, working professional, church attendee, and stay-at-home parent. Granted, it's unrealistic, and arguably unnecessary, for civilians to maintain the same level of acute awareness as people whose livelihoods are based around it. Imagine how exhausting it would be to remain on high alert 24/7, not to mention how much it would exhaust the people around us as well!

U.S. Marine Jeff Cooper developed the Color Code concept to identify different levels of situational awareness and to help people understand how to act as someone who is situationally aware. 

Practical and straightforward, the Color Code is still taught to law enforcement officers today. Let's take a look at it from a civilian perspective...