Nurses in New London get life-saving training with ‘Stop the Bleed’ program

NEW LONDON, CT (WFSB) - Nurses in New London are getting some life-saving training and they’re hoping you’ll join them.

“Our job as humans is really to help each other,” Lawrence + Memorial Hospital Trauma Program Manager Jessica Mancarella said.

What better way to help than to learn how to save a life?

“Teaching them the basics of hemorrhage control or bleeding control,” Lawrence + Memorial Trauma Surgeon Stephanie Joyce said. “That’s the number one cause of death in trauma patients.”

We’re talking about things like tourniquets or packing wounds. They’re both things health leaders say we need to know how to do. Learning how starts with “Stop the Bleed.”

“Just like we encourage people in the public to take CPR or first-aid or anything like that, having those skills before you need them is really important,” Mancarella said.

This week, the Yale Health System is hoping to train more than 60 visiting nurses in the New London area how to perform the life-saving techniques.

Stop the Bleed is a nationwide program that started in 2015 in hopes more people would know how to help a patient before first responders arrive during an emergency.

“Even if you see an accident on the side of the road, you can have the skills to help save a life,” Joyce said.

Once the nurses are trained, the hospital will host a class for the general public. The class is about an hour long and is offered on March 8 at 4:00 p.m. It will be held at 365 Montauk Ave. in New London.

“You train for it and then you pray to God that you never have to use it,” Mancarella said.

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