WASHINGTON – Public safety experts are calling on police, firefighters and paramedics to adopt guidelines that could help them reach victims of mass shootings faster and stop bleeding sooner.
It’s a mission that’s become even more critical in the aftermath of recent mass attacks on streets, schools and movie theaters. Doctors say gunshot wounds to an arm or a leg can be just as deadly as one to the chest.
With the caliber of weapons in use, and the trauma from explosive devices, it only takes four to five minutes for a victim to bleed out from a groin wound, said Dr. David Wade, chief medical officer at the FBI.
Hartford Consensus, a group made up of medical, law enforcement, paramedic and military officials, started looking at first response procedures following last year’s fatal shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. The group presented its guidelines Tuesday during a medical conference in Washington hosted by the American College of Surgeons.
The group proposes changes to the traditional three-phase response plan: police respond and secure the area, paramedics move in to assist victims, and then the community recovers.
“That chews up a lot of time,” said Dr. Lenworth Jacobs, a member of the Consensus who was on standby following the Sandy Hook shootings. “What we propose is to make them overlap. There’s obviously some issues with that. But you want to get care to the patients as quickly as possible so they don’t bleed to death.”
Under the Hartford Consensus plan, paramedics and firefighters are urged to develop “tactical combat casualty care plans,” similar to those used by the military.
Instead of waiting for victims to be evacuated, paramedics would at times move in to provide aid in an unsecure environment.
“Integration is definitely something you want, to the extent that it’s possible, understanding that the priority is the preservation of life,” said Capt. Matthew Grant of the Kansas City, Mo. Police Department.
However, Grant questions bringing paramedics into dangerous situations because they can’t protect themselves as law enforcement officers do. In a telephone interview, he pointed to possible hidden dangers, such as the explosives planted around Columbine High School during the 1999 shootings in Colorado.
“That’s something you have to keep in mind,” Grant said. “What’s the safest way to assist all these people? Because you are going to add more casualties if you go about it the wrong way.”
The Hartford Consensus also suggests that police carry tourniquets and undergo training on how to use them so they can control bleeding once the immediate danger has subsided.
In Missouri, Grant says state law requires that police officers are trained as first responders. A 40-hour course is prescribed.
Last month, FEMA published a guide for active shooting preparation based on the Hartford Consensus guidelines. The group urges local authorities to look up find the guide online and tailor it to that community’s needs and resources.
“It’s impossible to put a checklist in place”, Grant said, “because every scenario has its own inherent difficulties and risks. And you have to take those into account at that time.”
“One size does not fit all,” Dr. Wade said. “We wanted to make people understand there are things you can do locally… that the means are at hand, through techniques and equipment that’s been developed in the last year to help us tackle this problem.”
Grant says the Kansas City Police Department has had a plan in place for years to generate an active response to shootings. It has evolved over time.
The Hartford Consensus “is a good framework of concepts that should be considered during training,” Grant said, “but I don’t think there’s necessarily anything that’s new to us.”