BINGHAMTON, NY— On Monday, Senator Fred Akshar partnered with Binghamton University’s student-run ambulance service, Harpur’s Ferry  to announce the implementation of the “Stop the Bleed” program. Launched in October 2015 by the White House, Stop the Bleed is a national awareness campaign and call to action, similar to that for Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs), that encourages and empowers individuals to act quickly to save lives.

Binghamton’s program, the first in New York State and one of the first in the country to be implemented on a college campus, was enabled by support of Akshar, who secured $25,000 in funding to help make the life-saving training available to residents throughout the 52nd Senate District.

The Stop the Bleed campaign encourages citizens to take the simple steps required to keep injured individuals alive until medical personnel can provide appropriate medical care. The program stresses the primary steps required in an emergency situation – the ABCs of bleeding control:

A=Alert – Call 911 as soon as possible.

B=Bleeding – Locate the bleeding injury.

C=Compress – Apply pressure to stop the bleeding.

At least one Stop the Bleed kit—containing two pair of blue nitrile gloves, one Celox hemostatic gauze dressing, one Combat Application tourniquet, one SWAT-T tourniquet, one mini black marker and one pair of trauma shears/scissors—has been placed with each of the approximately 160 AED kits on the Binghamton University campus. Fifteen large-venue areas have eight Stop the Bleed kits placed next to AED kits.

For information regarding training schedules or opportunities, contact Harpur’s Ferry at cpr@harpursferry.org.

To learn more about the “Stop the Bleed” campaign, go to https://www.binghamton.edu/emergency/bleeding-control/index.html.