New Hanover County school nurses undergo training to ‘stop the bleed’

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Students aren’t the only ones getting ready for a return to the classroom.  

School nurses are getting ready too. 

CPR, AED, and first aid training are part of that but there’s another vital tool these nurses need to have.  

Bleeding control kits are being administered to New Hanover County Schools.  

One of the biggest reasons school nurses are being trained on these is in the event of a mass casualty. 

Novant Health is providing each school in New Hanover County with two bleeding control kits.   

Each kit is designed to save the lives of four children and the training the nurses receive during the session is aimed at saving even more.  

Laney High School Nurse, Heather Elken, is from Newtown Connecticut — site of the Sandy Hook school shooting.  

She said this training is essential and could be the difference between life or death.  

“The ability to stop a bleed at that time would’ve been an essential tool, with 26 victims during that school shooting,” Elken said. 

Elken said she feels it is necessary to be equipped for any type of situation. She said with her job as a school nurse, you never want to have that regret of what you could have done. 

“You can bleed out or die from a traumatic bleeding episode in 3 to 4 minutes. So, the intervention happening within that 3 to 4 minutes while you’re even waiting for the ambulance to start coming, that’s when it’s essential,” Elken said. 

An instructor at the training session said this tool could be helpful in not just schools but at any place used for large gatherings.  

“If you have interest in getting an AED, you probably should have a bleeding control kit sitting next to it for your community,” Education Coordinator, David Glendenning, said. 

The training that these school nurses took part in today will be used to educate teachers and school faculty in an effort to equip everyone with the knowledge to save a life.