Every second counts: We could all be a zero responder one day so I went on a bleed control kit training course
In the latest instalment of the Express & Star's series of knife crime articles, reporter Adam Smith is given training about how to use a bleed control kit.
"If you use one of these kits you will be a zero responder, and the minutes before the paramedics get there could be the difference between life and death," said the first aid expert.
I'd only signed up for bleed control kit training but the first sentence reminded me I never ever wanted to use one.
Ten years ago the chances of finding what a person needs when giving first aid to a trauma victim would have been impossible.
But now, due of the work of the charities like the Daniel Baird Foundation and Yes2Life, if you are in the right place at the wrongest of times and you have to help someone in the moments after they sustained a knife wound, then a bleed control kit could be at the nearest pub, taxi rank, petrol garage or shop.
Many have been added to defibrillator boxes, already installed by charities to help heart attack victims.
So now members of the public can be "zero responders", to make a difference before the first responders of the emergency services get to the scene.
Communities across the Black Country and Staffordshire have raised money in response to knife crime deaths to install bleed control kits in their locality, there are now hundreds in the West Midlands.
