Every second counts: We could all be a zero responder one day so I went on a bleed control kit training course
In the latest instalment of the Express & Star's series of knife crime articles, reporter Adam Smith is given training about how to use a bleed control kit.
"If you use one of these kits you will be a zero responder, and the minutes before the paramedics get there could be the difference between life and death," said the first aid expert.
I'd only signed up for bleed control kit training but the first sentence reminded me I never ever wanted to use one.
Ten years ago the chances of finding what a person needs when giving first aid to a trauma victim would have been impossible.
But now, due of the work of the charities like the Daniel Baird Foundation and Yes2Life, if you are in the right place at the wrongest of times and you have to help someone in the moments after they sustained a knife wound, then a bleed control kit could be at the nearest pub, taxi rank, petrol garage or shop.
Many have been added to defibrillator boxes, already installed by charities to help heart attack victims.
So now members of the public can be "zero responders", to make a difference before the first responders of the emergency services get to the scene.
Communities across the Black Country and Staffordshire have raised money in response to knife crime deaths to install bleed control kits in their locality, there are now hundreds in the West Midlands.
The average kit contains a tourniquet, to stem catastrophic bleeding, wound packing and coagulation dressings are what is needed for deep penetrating wounds, usually to the torso, so you can locate the source of the bleed and pack the wound from the source up to a point where you can apply pressure.
In the training session organised by Yes 2 Life I learned how important it is to stem the bleeding and how wrapping a tourniquet around the wound and adding pressure could preserve a life until paramedics arrive.
A victim of a stab wound can bleed to death within six minutes, every second counts.
The group of 20 of us in the training session in Handsworth were all ages, colours and backgrounds but everyone wanted to learn a new skill to save a life. One group member, a strapping six foot two man, had felt helpless when a friend was stabbed. Another, a retired grandmother, signed up after realising a teenager had died at the end of her road.
Hopefully, I will never know if what I learnt in the training is still in the old grey matter, however, a lot of it is common sense, which is why members of the public have used kits to save lives without any training.
Lynne Baird, whose charity has installed 10,00 bleed control kits across the country, explained that a lot of people who have used her charity's kits were not trained.
Wolverhampton residents answered a call for zero responder training in the wake of a spate of serious stabbings including the death of schoolboy Zane Smart.
Birmingham based charity Yes 2 Life held a training session at Tytek Medical, Wolverhampton Science Park, which was oversubscribed within days.
Tytek Medical also has produced YouTube training videos so members of the public know how to use a bleed control kit.
Yes 2 Life is part of the global Choose Love network, which connects charities across the world to help save lives and provide support for children who have experienced trauma.
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Choose Love was founded by Scarlett Lewis whose son six-year-old Jesse was one of 20 schoolchildren killed during the Sandy Hook School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in the US, in 2012.
Armed with an assault rifle, former pupil Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children and six teachers before turning the gun on himself. Earlier in the day he had murdered his mother, a former teacher at the school.
Scarlett has since provided preventative violence education sessions to 10,000 schools across America and in 110 countries as well as lobbying for stronger gun laws in America.
However, when she heard about the knife crime statistics in the West Midlands she was moved to fund 10 bleed control kits in Birmingham.
Scarlett said: "It is tragic what is happening to teenagers in England. I totally understand the concept of zero responders and how bleed control kits can save lives. It took more than seven minutes for emergency services to get to Jesse’s school and a bleed control kit could have saved lives,”
Majid Khan, from Yes 2 Life, said: "Zero responders is about communities blighted by knife crime stepping up and deciding to help save lives.
"There are now more people in Wolverhampton who can save lives because they decided they wanted to do something positive after so many tragedies."