Life Saving Bleed Kits made available to city centre businesses
28 February 2020
Midlands Air Ambulance Charity (MAAC) have joined forces with Birmingham City Council and the Daniel Baird Foundation to ensure the city has readily available Bleed Control Kits and the skills to save a life. Colmore Business District is one of the first parts of the city to roll them out to local businesses.
MAAC have seen a significant increase in the number of stabbings their crews attend and whilst they can not control the number of knives on the street, they are passionate about reducing the number of deaths from these incidents.
It can take 8-10 minutes for emergency services to arrive at an incident however it can take only 3 minutes to lose a life from catastrophic blood loss. This is why early bleed control is essential in increasing survival rates.
Lynne Baird lost her son Daniel to knife crime, she believes if one of the Prometheus bleed controls kits had been available Daniel may still be with us today. So others don’t suffer the same loss as Lynne, MAAC are working with her to place the kits across our city and to provide training on the correct way to use them.
The kits contain dressings and material designed by the military to be used in war zones. The kits are the best on the market and the only ones that West Midlands Ambulance service will recognize as sufficient to save a life. Each time one of these kits is placed around the city its location will be logged on the 999 data base, so when an incident occurs the nearest kit can be found.
Colmore Business District has been working with local businesses to identify appropriate locations for the kits to be stored in case of a future life-or-death emergency. The Paradise Estate is one of the first locations to receive a kit.
Caroline Rudge, Asset Manager at Argent, Development Managers for Paradise Birmingham, said, “We’re very proud to support Colmore BID in the potentially life-saving initiative around making more bleed kits available. By offering space for them to conduct their next training sessions here at Paradise Birmingham we’re recognising the urgent need for more of these kits to be available in public places. As Paradise evolves into a destination in its own right where more and more visitors spend time, it is essential we do everything we can to assist the emergency services and organisations like the Air Ambulance who rely on bleed kits being available to help keep the public safe.”
John-Jo Von Johnson, Street Operations Manager at Colmore BID said:
“Whilst Colmore Business District is a relatively safe part of the city centre, we are all aware of the challenge that knife crime presents in the city and across the UK. By arranging for these kits to be hosted with local businesses, we hope that we can all play a part in preventing deaths in the city.”
If you would like to purchase a kit for your business or to find out more about the project you can contact Pam.hodgetts@midlandsairambulance.com. If you are based in Colmore Business District you can contact John-jo.vonjohnson@colmorebid.co.uk.
