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09/12/2019 12:01 AMOn Aug. 27, teachers and other school staff gathered at the East Haven High School on teacher development day and learned skills they hoped they never need to deploy. This was a collaborative project between the Board of Education and the East Haven Fire and Police departments.
That day, 385 school district teachers and faculty members participated in the national Stop the Bleed and ALICE training campaigns, sponsored by the East Haven Fire and Police departments. Through classroom training and hands-on exercises, they learned how to help prevent someone from bleeding to death before first responders arrive. Staff also received training from the East Haven Police Department on innovative and improvised ways to harden classrooms.
As part of the initiative, all East Haven Public Schools will receive at least one Stop the Bleed kit to be strategically located in each school. Each kit contains tourniquets, wound packing materials, and bandages.
Mayor Joseph Maturo, Jr., said that East Haven is one of only a handful of towns in Connecticut to provide this training to its teachers and faculty, the closest being North Haven.
“East Haven is ahead of the curve as compared to the rest of the state in large part because of the talent pool among our Police and Fire departments and willingness to collaborate on such an important initiative,” he said. “From the beginning, I supported both our public safety departments on this important endeavor.”
Superintendent of Schools Erica Forti said the district’s number-one priority is the safety and security of students and staff so the training was necessary, helpful, and an important part of the larger school security initiative.
“We have no other choice but to be prepared. We value our partnership and the support we receive from the East Haven Fire and Police departments,” Forti said. “The hands-on training was instrumental in preparing all staff to use the Stop the Bleed kits located in every school. It was an investment we were committed to making.”
Fire Chief Matt Marcarelli said it only takes minutes for a person to bleed to death. The goal of the training was to provide staff with the skills needed in those first few minutes before first responders can gain access to injured victims.
“In some cases, people are hesitant to get involved thinking they can’t do anything. The point of the training is to break that instinct and provide the confidence and skillset to act and make a difference,” Marcarelli said.
Police Chief Ed Lennon said that this is all part of a larger plan as part of the School Safety Initiative and is not a one-time event. Officers from the East Haven Police Department and firefighters from the East Haven Fire Department recently attended Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter & Evacuate (ALICE) training and brought some of that information to the Aug. 27 in-service training.
“The objective of this training was to ensure that teachers and staff have an options-based response rather than hide and wait,” Lennon said.
After a 45-minute informational presentation by Fire Training Officer Paul Norwood, about 23 instructors split staff into groups to learn how to use tourniquets and pack and bandage wounds. The instructors included staff from the East Haven Fire Department; Branford, North Haven, and North Branford fire departments; Yale School of Medicine; and American Medical Response. Officers of the East Haven Police Department instructed faculty on ways that they can easily harden their classrooms and prevent intruders in an active shooter situation. All East Haven firefighter/paramedics have been trained in Stop the Bleed techniques taken from battlefield medicine.
Stop the Bleed is a national initiative started after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School as a way to empower the public to act as immediate responders. The program teaches basic bleeding control techniques and provides tools like packing and tourniquets to the general public.