Stopping the bleeding: police, EMS coordination at Power Ultra

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It's not yet known if Little Rock police saved lives using the army-based training they received from Metropolitan Emergency Medical Services (MEMS) paramedics. MEMS personnel are following up on the medical outcomes of the injured this week. But what is known is that MEMS and the state Trauma System's decision to develop training for law enforcement officers across Arkansas and work with police and fire agencies to create a new paradigm for reaching victims of mass attacks has produced results.

"On Friday night, we had a very positive demonstration of that working [together] on a large scale," Jon Swanson, MEMS executive director, said Monday. The major change: The police no longer wait until a scene is completely secured and no danger exists before calling help for the injured. The scenario now allows EMS responders to assume some risk so they can get to victims before they bleed out. In the case of a gunshot wound to the femoral artery, that would be three minutes. In the case of the brachial artery, 10 to 15 minutes.

Five MEMS units and a supervisor responded to the early Saturday morning shooting, and only 31 minutes elapsed from the first call for help to the last victims transported to hospitals.

"Traditionally, law enforcement would have gone in, secured the area and continued to put yellow tape up, and then call" for ambulances, said Clayton Goddard, special operations supervisor for MEMS. That could take a lot of time, a point driven home by the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the Boston Marathon, Goddard said. "There were lives being lost because of blood loss."

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