New use case aims to help ‘Stop the Bleed’ and provide emergency supplies for first responders.
first responder kiosk locker
Did you know that uncontrolled bleeding was the leading cause of potentially preventable death among trauma patients? Or that it only takes five minutes for a person the die from traumatic blood loss? How about that 60,000 Americans die from blood loss each year? Traumatic injuries can happen anywhere. And considering that it takes an average of eight minutes for emergency medical services to arrive (14 minutes in rural areas), the difference between a saved life and a tragic death can hinge on bystanders and their access to the supplies they need to provide first aid.
And now, digital kiosks are contributing to the effort to provide access to those supplies and improve the odds of someone surviving a traumatic injury.
From bystander to first responder
East Rutherford, N.J.-based Community Response and Mitigation (CR+M), a privately owned company that specializes in the manufacture, delivery, and implementation of crisis management solutions designed to help save lives during critical incidents, is behind the effort, leveraging a partnership with the national STOP THE BLEED® campaign. STOP THE BLEED® is the result of a collaborative effort led by the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS COT) and the U.S. Department of Defense to bring knowledge of bleeding control to the public.
Driven in part by mass casualty events including the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, where 20 children and six adults were killed, STOP THE BLEED® was launched as a national public awareness campaign in October 2015 by the White House.
The campaign’s call to action was to train people to become immediate responders until professional help arrives. The ACS Committee on Trauma first publicly introduced bleeding control training courses for its members the following year, and since then thousands of other medical professionals have trained to become course instructors.
New Jersey law enforcement officers Jason Innella and Sean McKinney founded CR+M in 2016 to help mitigate the loss of life in incidents such as the Sandy Hook shooting. The company’s contribution to the STOP THE BLEED® effort centers around a digital kiosk designed as a “forward operating post” providing first responders with the tools and supplies needed during a mass casualty event to help save lives.
The digital kiosk stores five CR+M belts, each containing five STOP THE BLEED® kits as well as a breaching tool and a ballistic shield. Each kit includes a C-A-T tourniquet, QuikClot® Bleeding Control Dressing™, protective gloves, compression bandages, a pair of protective gloves, a Mini Sharpie marker and two three-ply masks. The belts provide First Responders with the ability to rapidly distribute hemorrhage control to a large number of injured patients in a mass casualty situation.
Olea Kiosks helped design and manufacture the units. The kiosks also include two 55” high-bright outdoor displays, LED lightbox and a customized safety locker designed by CR+M. In the absence of an emergency, the units are a highly valuable real-time digital bulletin board and advertising tool. The facility can publish its own information and can generate revenue from brands and local businesses that have a desire to reach the audiences who frequent their locations. The kiosk is available for both outdoor and indoor applications.
Along with the kiosks, CR+M also offers digital post-mounted units and storage cabinets for applications where a kiosk may not be feasible. The CR+M Post offers the same capabilities as the digital kiosk but without the displays and can fit into pre-existing installations such as light poles or updating old blue-light systems. The cabinets offer “grab and go” access to two CR+M Belts with a total of 10 STOP THE BLEED kits. The lightweight metal cabinet can be mounted to a wall and includes a bottom shelf for a first aid kit or defibrillator provided by the end-user. CR+M’s safety solutions are built upon three critical first responder needs and strategies, the company says:
- Command & Control: Establish command and control providing a quicker, more prepared and better-coordinated response for first responders.
- Hemorrhage Control: Deliver immediate hemorrhage control products to stop the bleed for the wounded and minimize loss of life.
- Tools & Technologies: Provide essential tools to better prepare first responders with on-premise equipment to better mitigate the event.
- As an educational licensee of STOP THE BLEED, CR+M is working with the American College of Surgeons to train, prepare and equip its customers with critical life-saving skills.
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