Tag Archives: trauma

DHEC in the News: ‘Stop the Bleed,’public housing going smoke-free, students attend health summit

Here’s a look at health and environmental news from around South Carolina.

SC School Nurses Learn How to ‘Stop-the-Bleed’ in Columbia

Columbia, SC (WLTX) – School nurses from all over South Carolina come to Columbia to educate others when it comes to “stopping the bleed” in an emergency situation.

“Bleeding is the number one cause of death in trauma patients, the number one cause of preventable death,” says Rich Wisniewski with DHEC.

In this two-hour class called “Stop-the-Bleed,” school nurses are learning how to train others in emergency procedures.

Charleston public housing braces for challenges as it goes smoke-free

When the nation’s public housing goes smoke-free next week, the Charleston Housing Authority admits it will be struggling with how to enforce the ban even after adopting its own no-smoking policy last fall.

Don Cameron, executive director of the Charleston Housing Authority, said his agency that serves some, families is still trying to find the right balance between creating a healthier environment for residents and making sure the shift isn’t a jarring one.

“This is probably the biggest change we’ve had in the last decade that affects the entire public housing industry across the country,” Cameron said.

General Interest

Florence One students attend health summit in Atlanta

FLORENCE, S.C. – Five students from Florence One Schools went to Atlanta last week to attend the National Fuel Up to Play 60 Summit, the nation’s largest in-school health and wellness program.

From Other Blogs: Keeping cool in hot weather, avoiding uninvited guests at summer outings, using trauma-informed care to inform emergency preparedness and response

A collection of health and environmental posts from other governmental blogs.

Keep Your Cool in Hot Weather

Now is the time to prepare for the high temperatures that kill hundreds of people every year. Extreme heat causes more than 600 deaths each year. Heat-related deaths and illness are preventable, yet many people still die from extreme heat every year.

Take measures to stay cool, remain hydrated, and keep informed. Getting too hot can make you sick. You can become ill from the heat if your body can’t compensate for it and properly cool you off.  The main things affecting your body’s ability to cool itself during extremely hot weather are … — From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Your Health – Your Environment blog

How to Avoid Uninvited Guests at Your Summer Outing

In the summertime, as the weather begins to heat up, our microscopic friends, called bacteria, begin to make uninvited appearances at our cookouts, picnics and even camping trips. Sometimes these little friends can be helpful, but other times, they just make you sick.

Bacteria will grow anywhere they have access to nutrients and water. Microorganisms that cause disease are called pathogens. When certain pathogens enter the food supply, they can cause foodborne illness. – From the US Department of Agriculture blog

Using trauma-informed care to guide emergency preparedness and response

Exposure to a traumatic event or set of circumstances can negatively affect a person’s mental, physical, social, emotional or spiritual well-being for a long time after the initial incident. We know that not all individuals respond to trauma in the same way and we know that individuals with a history of trauma, especially childhood trauma, are more likely to experience psychological distress and are at increased risk for the development of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with future exposure to trauma. – From the CDC’s Public Health Matters blog

DHEC Helps SC Schools ‘Stop the Bleed’

In 2017 the Upstate Healthcare Coalition presented a project to provide stop the bleed kits to all regional schools in the Upstate as part of the Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) grant funding, through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). DHEC works with the coalitions to administer this grant.

Coalition WinnerThe Lowcountry, Midlands and Pee Dee Healthcare coalitions decided to implement this project in their regions as well. Spartanburg Regional Health, MUSC, Palmetto Health and Grand Strand Health are partnering with the HPP Health Care Coalitions to help facilitate this project.

The state of South Carolina and the Regional Healthcare Coalitions have received almost $1.06 million in federal grant funding. South Carolina is scheduled to receive more than 18,000 “Stop the Bleed” kits that will be evenly distributed among the four Public Health Preparedness Regions’ school districts.

Public school districts will receive “Stop the Bleed” training and tourniquet kits at no cost to the districts. The tourniquet kits will contain supplies and cuff-like devices that can stop severe traumatic bleeding during an emergency on the school campus or during a school event, enabling lay-people to intervene and potentially save lives in the event of a life-threatening injury. Each district will be allocated tourniquets based on population and will distribute them to the schools.

The model for training and distribution would be to have lead nurses in all participating districts attend train-the-trainer educational sessions, where they would obtain certificates to verify their training status upon completion. Once the lead nurses are trained, a supply of kits will be delivered to their offices for distribution at the district’s discretion (factors include, but are not limited to, the number of schools, school size and the number of buildings, and student volume).

There will be at least one training held in every region. District school nurses would be responsible for training the other nurses in their district.

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