Over the last eight weeks, nearly 6,000 Broward County teachers and staff members at more than 85 public elementary, middle and high schools have completed a 'Stop The Bleed' emergency and first aid training course.
Participants learn to use tourniquets and dress fake gashes and bullet wounds. The idea is to be able to stop severe bleeding and take care of significant wounds before paramedics arrive.
"I like to say that it's the new CPR for bleeding control," said Candace Pineda, the administrative director of trauma and acute care surgery at Memorial Regional Hospital, who also leads trainings. "Once they realize it's not all on their shoulders, it kind of gives them a sense of ownership and control that they know what to do, rather than feeling helpless."
The national 'Stop The Bleed' training was started in South Florida in Davie in 2014. Teachers in some Broward schools had received training before Parkland, but after the shooting emergency officials worked with the county to expand the training. There wasn't funding until this summer of this year to implement it in every public school across the county.
Now the training is being offered to teachers and staff in all Broward County Public Schools.
"I was nervous once it began," said Julie Osheroff, who teaches 4th grade math and science at Coral Cove and took part in training Wednesday. "Now as teachers, they want us to play so many roles. When I went to school to become a teacher, I was not signing up to be a paramedic, or to be a police officer."
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The 'Stop The Bleed' kits includes a tourniquet, gloves and some first aid supplies, like gauze.
Osheroff said she had never learned to use a tourniquet before the hour-long course.
"I definitely learned things today that I had never heard before," Osheroff said. "We watch these kids get hurt all the time, but they're little scrapes, they're little paper cuts - not this massive, gushing wound...the more you learn about it, the more we can do."
Each school that completes the training recieves at least one 'Stop The Bleed' kit to keep on hand.
"Any of these kind of trainings just makes it very real that we could be in this situation," Osheroff said.
This story has been updated with more information.
