Pictured: Dr. Hayashi narrates to the crowd as medical professionals demonstrate how to properly use a tourniquet on new JABSOM MDs. Vina Cristobal photo.
By Deborah Manog Dimaya, UH Med Now Correspondent
On any given day, the person that saves your life might just be your spouse, your friend or the stranger standing next to you. In an emergency event, including mass shootings– the person who saves your life could be your spouse, a friend or a stranger standing next to you. Approximately 40% of trauma-related deaths worldwide are due to bleeding or its consequences. Hemorrhaging– uncontrolled bleeding– is the most common cause of preventable death in trauma*.
Trauma Medical Director at the Queen’s Medical Center, Dr. Michael Hayashi wants the community to know that they can be empowered to take the first steps to save a person’s life. He says the goal is for knowledge on how to stop traumatic bleeding becomes as familiar to the general public as is cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
“You can be empowered to take those first steps and do the same things that we’re going to do in the hospital and they’re pretty simple to learn,” said Dr. Hayashi, also a Clinical Professor at the University of Hawaiʻi John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM). He adds, “The bottom line is that anyone can stop bleeding, anyone can save a life and this is something that we should all know.”
Governor David Ige and Lieutenant Governor Joshua Green proclaimed May 15, 2019 as Stop the Bleed Day in the State of Hawaiʻi.
The State of Hawaiʻi Trauma System — including the Hawaiʻi State Department of Health, Emergency Medical Services Branch and the Trauma Advisory Council, the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa JABSOM, and Hawaiʻi’s major health and academic training partners gathered at the UHM Kakaʻako campus in a one-day call to action to teach the community how to Stop the Bleed.
Trauma teams demonstrated on ten new JABSOM doctors, how to properly use a tourniquet and treat someone in the event of an emergency. Stop the Bleed Hawaiʻi is also working to get bleeding control kits placed next to automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in public locations so bystanders can act when help is needed.
* Curry N, Hopewell S, Doree C, Hyde C, Brohi K, Stanworth S. The acute management of trauma hemorrhage: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Crit Care. 2011;15(2):R92.