About a year after a gunman slaughtered 19 children and two teachers in a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, a bill has been introduced

by a state legislature

to provide annual training to elementary school children on how to tie tourniquets or wrap bleeding wounds during mass casualty incidents.

The May 24, 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School led to a

Texas

Democratic state representative proposes to expand an existing state law requiring school districts to provide annual instruction on bleeding control techniques

,

starting in

by

the seventh grade. The new bill could lower the educational threshold for primary school children.

“In a perfect world, this legislation wouldn’t be necessary,”

stands

Representative Barbara Gervin-Hawkins

a Democratic State Representative from San Antonio,

who wrote the bill, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, with mass shootings becoming so common in our state, it is imperative to provide students with tools that can help them save a life when faced with this terrible situation.”

Gervin-Hawkins also spearheaded the state’s current law, which was enacted in response to the 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting.

The bill is a flashpoint in a state that has relaxed access to firearms in recent years as the nation has endured increasing gun violence. It also highlights the stark reality that schoolchildren in America face on a daily basis.

Under the bill, bleeding control stations, which became mandatory on district and charter school campuses in 2020, must include tourniquets approved for use in battlefield trauma care by the United States Armed Forces,

;breaststamps; compression bandages;

bleeding control dressings,

room

emergency blankets,

; latex free

gloves

; markings

pair of scissors

;

other

approved

instruction

s documents developed detailing methods to go further

prevent

scary

blood loss after a traumatic event. In addition to lowering

drop

the age limit required by the bill

the installation of

emergency

alarm

devices that can

are activated with thunderous signals

alarm

shipping centers and

authorities

once activated

.

The bill originally proposed lowering the age to third grade, but a new bill

What

introduced to the Select Youth Health and Safety House committee would take it to fourth grade, Gervin-Hawkins’

S

desk attached. The new bill also requires a behavioral health professional, such as a

school

supervisor, be present at the training for students in these years

s levels

.

Families can choose to keep their children out of school, in accordance with existing legislation.

The Texas Elementary Principals

And &

Supervisors Assn., or TEPSA, opposes the bill, with a representative saying it’s nonsensical for “a child to be involved in something like that.”

“It is not appropriate,”

said

Mark Terry, deputy executive director of TEPSA, said. He said parents also shared their disapproval of the bill.

Several states have laws

similar to the Texas measures, regarding bleeding control,

portion of the

American College of Surgeons’a

nationwide Stop the Bleed campaign,

That

was born in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre

Newtown, Newton,

Connected. The initiative aims to empower bystanders to help victims in a variety of traumatic circumstances, from mass shootings to car accidents, by equipping the public with the knowledge and tools to implement lifesaving measures until first responders arrive.

https://twitter.com/StopTheBleed/status/1259957122084868098?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1259957122084868098%7Ctwgr%5E8221f2617c29d856b41dee ef6 8d090e963788414%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wusa9.com% 2Farticle % 2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fdc%2Fnew-lifesaving-training-coming-to-dc-high-schools-stop-the-bleed-emergency-paredness%2F65-b574fb10-2f9e-4913-b24f-06342b18e7eb

California passed a law last year requiring this

taller

newly built

public and private

buildings to deliver trauma kits that

are mandated

contain

FIRST AID

articles, among others

a

tourniquet

S

. The legislature is considering

require rollout

the kits

go inside

older buildings and including Stop the Bleed training for all high schools

students graduates

similar to the state-mandated CPR training required since 2016.

Lawmakers proposed 19 similar bills, several of which became law in state houses across the country, including

the

Texas

legislation

according to the

American College of Surgeons’

Stop the bleed program, that

promotes and helped pioneer the Stop the Bleed campaign and

follows the legislation regarding the control of trauma bleeding. The bills and laws cover a broad spectrum, including financing, supplies and instructions.

But many bills have stalled. The proposed Texas bill is unlikely to make it through committee before the legislative session closes later this month.

“I understand there are concerns that younger students are being exposed to this type of material,” Gervin-Hawkins said in an emailed statement. “The experts we spoke to agree that young children can learn the techniques taught in this training. This training provides valuable life skills for these students, even outside the context of school shootings.”

Schools, public health officials and community groups across the country have taught lifesaving first aid techniques, including bleeding control, to students from Montana to Washington, DC, to Florida.

In 2019, Arkansas passed a law requiring this

That

public schools

Unpleasant

provide bleeding control training to high school students. But Texas, which was the first state to enact it

search

legislation that would

apply to require

students

to participate in the Stop the Bleed training

like

and not alone

school personnel, appears to be the first state to enact a bill that would make training available to elementary school children.

Current legislation to lower the age of children in 3rd grade is not about whether you can teach the child the skill, but whether we should teach the child the skill, Linda James, a clinical assistant professor at Sam’s School of Nursing Houston State University, wrote in a public comment on Legiscan, a real-time online legislative tracker. “Questions about intention to use the skill and retention of the skill have not been clearly and consistently identified in the study.”

Missy Anderson is a pediatric trauma program manager at Denver Health Trauma who has provided crisis care to children of all ages

five

5 to 13 since 2018. She is

hosted training for had

Girl Scout troops, lifeguard organizations, church groups, and sports teams

contact her to organize training sessions

. When working with small children, Anderson, who has developed her own curriculum, uses expressions such as major bleed and minor bleed to talk

with small children

about injuries and relates wrapping wounds to filling a Build-a-Bear or a backpack, concepts she says she understands.

I’ve never had questions where I thought: this child doesn’t understand or this young child is scared, she said.

She taught

Instruction is given in a safe environment and the course itself is not about violence, she said. It’s about saving people who are bleeding, Anderson said. But she added that some of her students have used mass shootings as an example of what can cause serious bleeding or injury. Anderson emphasizes personal safety as a priority and clearly communicates that it’s okay not to interfere, she said.

“I don’t know if they will help,” she said of the children she has taught. “But I just provided them with knowledge and the ability to go out and help if they want to help.”

Dr Chethan Sathya, a pediatric trauma surgeon and director of the Center for Gun Violence Prevention at Northwell Health,

WHERE LOCATED?

called

to the bill

teach

scary

such trauma care techniques are not effective for children as young as third grade.

Protesting this doesn’t mean we’re not in favor of life-saving measures that citizens can use, said Sathya, who has, among other things, taught high school students courses to stop the bleeding. But he said the idea that a child could apply a tourniquet or close a wound in an emergency situation such as a mass shooting is highly unlikely. It also fails to address the core problem of gun violence, he added.

The idea that it is a solution to prevent deaths in mass shootings is ludicrous, he said.

In recent years, Texas has made it easier for residents to acquire guns by weakening existing gun regulations, such as eliminating the carry image.

Gun control advocates recently won a major victory when a bipartisan committee of the state legislature voted Monday to introduce a bill that would raise the minimum age to purchase AR-15-style rifles. The legislation followed the deadly mass shooting at a shopping center in

Allen, Texas, Houston

during the weekend. But the celebration was short-lived as the bill missed a vital eligibility deadline on Tuesday night and must be resubmitted at a later date.