Born from the tragedy of gun violence, this program teaches children how to stop a wound from bleeding out

“Stop the Bleed” turns bystanders — even young children — into immediate responders by teaching them to pack a wound and use a tourniquet.

When I visited Rocklin Elementary school, I sat in on a lesson with a third-grade class – a lesson I would never have imagined as a father, a journalist or a trauma surgeon. “Chances are, you’re never ever going to have to use this. If you do, it’s gonna be scary,” Kate Carleton told the 20 or so 8- and 9-year-olds. “But because we’ve taught you what to do, it makes it a little less scary.” She spent the next 30 minutes teaching them how to stop a wound from bleeding out. The lesson is appropriately titled “Stop the Bleed.” Carleton is a trauma nurse at Sutter Roseville Medical Center, a level 2 trauma center in Rocklin, California, a northern suburb of Sacramento. At the beginning of her 17-year career, she saw a lot of car crashes, motorcycle accidents and falls. More recently, the number of gunshot wounds coming through her hospital has increased, most often from domestic violence or suicide. On this day, she was kneeling on the ground to show these little kids the techniques paramedics often use in the field to stop bleeding. And as I looked around the classroom, I could tell that the kids were really listening. “Now, if you’ve got that bleeding to stop on that person, what did you do for their life?” she asked the kids.