ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A Rochester police officer shot in the leg Friday morning is home recovering after applying his own tourniquet in the seconds following the shooting. All RPD officers have been trained to stop the bleed but normally they use those skills on victims, not themselves.
Every Rochester police officer carries a tourniquet on his or her belt and there are additional tourniquet kits inside all patrol vehicles. That’s because police officers are often first to respond in an emergency.
“I think officers are more inclined now than they were in the past to get involved in medical care. We train them on how to take care of themselves God forbid they need it but that training translates to the public too,” Dr. Mark Gestring explains.
Dr. Gestring is the lead trauma surgeon at Strong Hospital. He works closely with local law enforcement, ensuring officers know the best ways to stop or slow the bleeding of trauma patients in the field.
“Whether you’re in Brighton, Irondequoit or Brockport, likely the first person at the scene of your injury whether it’s a chainsaw or a car accident or motorcycle accident, is going to be a police officer and if that police officer is empowered to help, they’re going to make a real difference,” Dr. Gestring says.
The RPD officer shot on Friday applied his own tourniquet before being rushed to the hospital. But often, RPD officers are applying those tourniquets on victims of shootings and stabbings.
“We are emphasizing the use so much more because they are saving lives,” explains RPD Lt. Eric Rathfelder who handles in-service and continuing training for officers.
“We see them (tourniquets) with some regularity and that “stop the bleed” training course has really benefited not just the patients but also us, in that the patients we get to fix are in much better shape than they would have been had they been bleeding the entire time it took for them to get here,” Dr. Gestring says.
Across the region, Dr. Gestring’s team sees a few saves every month from the early application of a tourniquet. Sometimes just putting pressure on a wound can be enough but if not, the tourniquets come out. “We encourage officers that if they suspect that a tourniquet could save this person’s life, to apply it because the downside is minimal in an environment where we work where they are going to quickly be given a higher level of medical care,” Rathfelder says. “If the blood is actually hosing out, whether it’s a gunshot or a stab wound or an industrial accident, people get hurt with saw and hammers and all sorts of other issues but if blood is hosing out, you need to prevent that from happening,” Dr. Gestring adds.
While most tourniquet training is geared toward first responders, there is a push to get more regular people basic training too. “Every place in public where we have a defibrillator, we’re trying to put a stop the bleed kit,” Dr. Gestring says.
The officer who was shot on Friday was discharged from the hospital on Saturday and is home recovering. The man police say shot the officer ran away from the scene. Shatique Cato was found a few hours later hiding in a pile of debris. When the drone put a spotlight on him, RPD says he shot and killed himself.
For more information on Stop the Bleed programs: Click Here
Trauma Docs: Increased usage of tourniquets is helping to save lives WHEC.com.
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