STOP THE BLEED® Course Offered at Iowa Specialty Hospital

Traumatic injuries that cause uncontrolled bleeding are a leading cause of preventable death for people of all ages throughout the county. A bleeding injury can happen anywhere. In recognition of the National STOP THE BLEED® Month this May, we are excited to announce that Iowa Specialty Hospital - Belmond now has an educational license to teach the course, and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) encourages everyone to learn how to save a life with three simple steps using this training. This program helps any individual to become an immediate responder by learning how to control bleeding. 

Iowa Specialty Hospital currently has two instructors: Amber Hunt, the Emergency Department Nurse Leader, and Kayla Zeien, the Hospital Nurse Educator. Amber and Kayla hope to educate Iowa Specialty staff and a wide variety of community members ranging from farmers, 4H groups, Girl Scout Troops, Boy Scout Troops, students, police departments, fire departments, and other community members who are interested in this program.

There is no minimum age requirement for the ACS STOP THE BLEED® course, although Amber and Kayla do recommend letting parents and/or guardians know about the graphic images and content included in the presentation. There will also be no charge to the program. These two instructors will volunteer their time and expertise to teach the training.

To better teach the STOP THE BLEED® course, the Belmond Auxiliary graciously funded a STOP THE BLEED® training kit that includes tourniquets, gauze, gloves, trauma shears, instructional booklets/posters, and two educational Wound Management Simulators. This training kit will help simulate wound patterns and will help students practice proper STOP THE BLEED® techniques.

If you have interest in the STOP THE BLEED® course, please email Kayla Zeien at kayla.zeien@iaspecialty.com.