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Portland Officers Save Life of Gunshot Victim (Photo)



On the evening of Tuesday, March 8, 2022, East Precinct Officers were dispatched to a shooting call in the 3200 Block of Southeast 92nd Avenue. While officers were driving to the scene, several other people called 911 to report someone had been hit and was bleeding heavily. Officers arrived to find a victim who appeared on the verge of dying due to loss of blood. The Officers immediately began conducting emergency medical treatment of the victim. One officer retrieved specially designed clotting gauze from his Individual First Aid Kit (IFAK) and began stuffing the wound, while another officer worked to apply a tourniquet. The officers were able to stop the bleeding and the victim was transported to a local hospital for treatment. These officers saved the victim's life.To get more news about Hemostatic granules, you can visit rusunmedical.com official website.

The above story is not an unusual or unique one for Portland Police Officers. All sworn members receive initial and regular refresher training on the use of IFAKs and application of tourniquets. The IFAKs contain a variety of life-saving tools, from Hemostatic Gauze designed to be packed into wounds and elicit clotting, to a Nasopharyngeal Tube, meant to establish and maintain the integrity of an airway.
Since January 2020, officers have conducted at least 90 tourniquet applications, including at least 7 times already this year. Each use of an IFAK or tourniquet is a potentially life-saving effort, and officers are grateful to have them among their inventory of tools.
When a wound appears on an extremity, tourniquets are usually the most effective tool, Patil said. If the person is bleeding from somewhere else – say the groin, neck or shoulder – pack it with hemostatic gauze from the kit and apply pressure.

When he helped the child, Roberts opted to use the tourniquet he kept in his car since the wound was on the arm. It was Roberts’ first outside of his training at Holy Spirit. Using the Stop the Bleed-sanctioned strap above the wound, Roberts tightened the pressure with a windlass to stanch the bleeding. By then, his partner, Officer Brian Ebersole, had arrived. Ebersole had served with the Marine Corps in Iraq and knew tourniquets from experience. He tightened the windlass even further than Roberts had. The bleeding stopped.

Thirty years ago, tourniquets were used as a last resort, Goodyear said, because the method worked so well, it cut off blood flow to the limb. Held in place too long, the old version of a tourniquet caused amputations.

Since then, military personnel on battlefields have perfected the practice, which allows enough blood flow to continue while still stopping the bleeding wound. A Stop the Bleed tourniquet should be in every kit.