What to Expect at a Stop the Bleed Class

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What to Expect at a Stop the Bleed Class

A walkthrough of what happens in a typical 90-minute class, who it's for, and what you'll know how to do when you leave.

People consider taking a Stop the Bleed class for a lot of reasons. Some have a specific concern. Some saw an event in the news. Some are taking it for work, or because their school or congregation organized one. Whatever brings someone to the class, the question that comes up before they walk in the door is usually the same: what is this going to be like.

This is a brief walkthrough of what to expect.

A note for people on the fence

Most adults will go their whole lives without seeing a serious bleeding emergency. That is the truth, and it is the reason many people decide they do not need this training. The thinking is reasonable.

The thinking is also why bleeding emergencies tend to play out the way they do. When something happens at a school, a workplace, a restaurant, a community event, or a family gathering, the people in the room are almost always people who never expected to be in the room. The skills the program teaches were chosen because they are the ones that make the difference in the first few minutes, before professional responders arrive. Whoever happens to be present is the person who can use them.

A 90-minute class is a small investment against a low-probability situation that, if it happens, the room will need someone who knows what to do. That is the case for taking the class. The fact that it probably will not happen to you is the reason it works that one of the people in the room has trained for it.

The class

A typical Stop the Bleed class runs 60 to 90 minutes. The format is part instruction, part hands-on practice. The instructor walks the room through the four skills that save lives in a bleeding emergency, and then attendees practice each one on training equipment. Attendees do not practice on each other. The bleeding control techniques are demonstrated and then practiced on dedicated training devices.

The four skills are recognizing life-threatening bleeding, applying direct pressure, packing a wound, and applying a tourniquet. These are the skills that the national Stop the Bleed program has identified as the ones that make the difference in the first few minutes of a bleeding emergency. The instruction stays focused on these four. Nothing more, nothing less.

What you actually do

Most of the class is doing, not watching. After a brief introduction and the medical context, the instructor demonstrates each skill and then walks the room through practicing it. You will hold a tourniquet in your hands and apply it to a training limb. You will pack gauze into a simulated wound. You will press hard enough to control bleeding on a training device that gives feedback when you are pressing correctly.

People who have never done hands-on medical training before sometimes find the first few minutes awkward. That goes away. By the second or third practice repetition, almost everyone settles in.

The training equipment

At Penn Tactical, we use realistic training aids that simulate anatomy and use fake blood. The fake blood is beet juice. It looks the part, it washes out of most fabrics, and it's organic and reportedly healthy, depending on how you feel about beets. We use realistic aids because realism prepares people better than abstract practice does. Pressing hard enough to control bleeding on a realistic limb feels different than pressing on a foam block, and the difference matters when the skill is needed for real. Trainees who have practiced under conditions that approximate the real thing have something closer to muscle memory rather than something closer to a memory.

That said, we keep less intense training aids on hand and we use them when an audience calls for them. Younger audiences, first-time learners, school assemblies, and any group where the realistic aids would be a barrier to learning get the modified version. The skills are the same. The training is the same. The difference is in how the simulation looks and feels. We want every attendee to leave with usable capability, and we adapt the format to make that happen for the audience in front of us.

If you are organizing a class and want to talk through which format fits your audience, that's a conversation we are happy to have before the class is scheduled.

What you leave with

You leave knowing how to use a tourniquet. Not theoretically. Functionally. You have applied one with your own hands, you have felt how tight is tight enough, and you understand what it looks like when it is working.

The same is true for wound packing and pressure. The class is built so that what you take home is real capability, not a memory of having seen something demonstrated.

Who it's for

The class is designed for any adult. There are no prerequisites. People from all backgrounds attend. Some have medical training already and are looking to refresh on the specific civilian-facing techniques. Many have no medical background at all and are taking their first hands-on training of any kind.

The class works for both audiences because of how it is taught. Our instructors have decades of experience between them, and most of that experience is in reading rooms and calibrating instruction to who is in front of them. A nurse in the back of the room and a high school senior at the front table will both be taught at the level they need. The skills are simple enough that everyone can learn them, and the teaching is adaptive enough that no one is bored and no one is lost. If there is a medical professional in the room, the class still teaches so that the person sitting next to them, who has never held a tourniquet, walks out with the same usable capability.

Practical notes

Wear clothes you can move in. The class involves kneeling on the ground, leaning over a training prop, and using your hands and arms in ways that office clothes can make awkward.

If you have a physical limitation that affects kneeling, gripping, or applying pressure, let your instructor know in advance. The skills can be adapted to most physical situations, and the goal is for everyone in the room to leave with usable capability.

How to find a class

Stop the Bleed classes are taught by training centers around the country. Penn Tactical Solutions delivers classes throughout the Philadelphia region, both as paid courses for organizations and at no cost through our community outreach program. To request a class for your organization or to ask about an upcoming open session, visit our community outreach page or contact us directly.