'Stop the Bleed': Fort Detrick holds training for traumatic wound treatment

May 21—Staff Sgt. Thomas Gundersen lay motionless on the cement floor of the pavilion at Fort Detrick's Blue and Gray Field on Thursday morning.

A few feet away, combat medics Neal Burnett and Korbyn Foss lay on their stomachs in the grass, clutching neon orange plastic guns.

In the scenario the three men were depicting, Gundersen's life was in danger from a heavily bleeding wound. But he was also in the middle of an active fire zone. Burnett and Foss couldn't run to help him.

"Bang!" the medics shouted, pretending to return fire. "Bang! Bang!"

At the center of the pavilion, Sgt. 1st Class Hunter Black narrated the simulation for Thursday's "Stop the Bleed" training and awareness event, hosted by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command.

During the session, soldiers, combat medics and civilian staff members from across the military post learned to apply a tourniquet, pack a wound and provide other kinds of medical treatment to people with traumatic bleeding.

USAMRDC's Combat Casualty Care Research Program developed the Stop the Bleed public awareness campaign in 2015 in response to mass trauma events, such as the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

The campaign was launched at the White House later that year.

Since then, more than 460 organizations around the world have participated in the training, including the Department of Defense, state and local governments, police and fire departments, and professional sports teams like the Baltimore Orioles, according to USAMRDC public affairs officer Ramin Khalili.

"We are excited that this information is getting out there," Khalili said.

When the simulated "gunshots" in the simulation had died down, Burnett and Foss darted to Gundersen and kneeled beside him. They quickly began tying a tourniquet around his arm.

Black watched. It's important to tie a tourniquet tightly, he told the audience.

"It's gonna hurt," said Black, who is stationed with the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity on Fort Detrick. "That's just reality. When it's applied correctly, it's gonna hurt. But you've got to stop the blood flow."

At the start of the war in Afghanistan, Black said, only the special operations side of the Army was practicing "Tactical Combat Casualty Care guidelines" — techniques developed to reduce deaths from traumatic injuries on the battlefield.

But when these techniques were included in general combat medic training in the early 2000s, the Army saw a massive reduction in casualties between the time people were injured on the battlefield and were taken to the hospital, Black said.

With increased awareness for Tactical Combat Casualty Care guidelines, advances to tourniquet technology and public awareness campaigns like Stop the Bleed, the Army now has a survival rate of about 96% on the battlefield, Black said.

Tourniquet training has saved lives in the civilian population, as well, said Dr. Melinda Hamer, an emergency medical doctor who currently is deputy director at the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs on Fort Detrick.

During the Boston Marathon, first responders and people who weren't medical professionals applied tourniquets that saved 27 lives, Hamer said.

She recounted a story from her time working at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore. A patient was admitted to the center after surviving a car crash by tying an electrical cord around his arm, creating a makeshift tourniquet.

"It's hard to imagine a lifesaving intervention that is as easy and effective to do as the application of a tourniquet," Hamer said.

The crowd tested their own skills at wound packing and tourniquet application at two tents set up on the field after watching the medics' simulation.

In front of one tent, the bottom half of an incredibly lifelike mannequin lay on a gurney. The pretend patient was in rough shape. His right leg had been severed just below the knee, and he had a deep gash above his left thigh.

But the wounds weren't gushing blood to Staff Sgt. Joshua Lorber's liking.

"Can you get the blood bucket?" he asked a soldier politely.

The soldier hoisted a large red container onto his shoulder and attached it to the mannequin with a rubber tube. Water began oozing from the patient's injuries.

Lorber guided members of the audience as they practiced applying tourniquets to the mannequin's right leg and packing the wound above his left thigh.

"Still bleeding!" he called out repeatedly until the medic treating the patient had effectively stopped the blood flow.

Denver Beaulieu-Hains, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity, received similar tourniquet training in the late 1990s, while serving as a broadcast journalist for the Army.

Tourniquet technology has come a long way since then, she said. In some ways, she said, it feels like she has come full circle. USAMMDA, where she now works, is responsible for advancing wound care and other types of medical treatment to help save more lives.

"It empowers regular everyday people to be able to save lives and intervene in an emergency situation," she said of Stop the Bleed. "Which is important, because sometimes, you only have a small window of time to save someone."

Follow Angela Roberts on Twitter: @24_angier