Revd Matt Sanderson recently took part in Stop the Bleed Day, a campaign to equip young people with the skills and confidence to treat injuries. Stop the Bleed Day is a national initiative created by the citizenAID charity in partnership with Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit which provides children with life-saving stop the bleed training.
Matt, a Senior Paramedic with North West Ambulance Service and Curate at Holy Trinity, Shaw, was joined by a paediatric Occupational Therapist and a Police Officer to deliver this training to Year 7 and 8 pupils at Copley Academy, Stalybridge. The children learned how to:
- Recognise when bleeding is life-threatening
- Stop simple bleeding
- Pack a deep wound
- Improvise a tourniquet using everyday items.
Matt and his team spent the day delivering thirty-minute-long training sessions. This way they could teach as many groups of students as possible and managed to provide training to all Year 7 and 8 pupils – an impressive feat!
“I saw this as training for the next generation of ‘Good Samaritans’ and an opportunity to challenge the idea that it is somebody else’s job”, says Matt. “We trained all Year 7 and Year 8 students in many, many 30-minute sessions.”
Revd Matt hopes to spread the word about ‘Stop the Bleed Day’, getting as many schools involved as possible so more children are equipped with these essential first aid skills.
You can find out more about 'Stop the Bleed' here.