Customers line up to fill up at Sam's Club in Meridian. Improved economy and lower gas prices have contributed to a 4 percent increase in travel this holiday season. The gas price at Sam's Club Tuesday was $1.92 a gallon for regular gas.

    Thirty-eight deputies and police officers from the Meridian Police Department, Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department and Meridian Community College Campus Police participated in trauma training class Thursday inside the courtroom at the Meridian Police Department.

    The class, taught by Chyann Shirley, trauma program manager at Rush Foundation Hospital, and Heather Kyle, program manager at Anderson Regional Medical Center, was based on a study by the Hartford Consensus Group. The group, a division of the American College of Surgeons,  found that a majority of fatalities in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., had bled to death.

    “A lot of these children’s injuries were not immediately lethal,” Dr. William A. Billups, a surgeon at Anderson and Rush said. “The reason they died is because they bled out.”

    The national percentage of penetrating wounds in ER cases is six percent. Meridian hospitals average about 11 percent, and have had as much as 20 percent.  

    Local law enforcement personnel were given a Kontrol of Major Bleeding Resource (KMBR) H2 Kit that contained a CAT Tourniquet, a 4-inch emergency trauma dressing flat, NAR compressed gauze and Bear Claw Nitrile Gloves. The kit was designed by Shirley to be small enough to fit in a pants pocket.

    “In incidents such as the Sandy Hook shooting, it might take an hour to clear the building,” Billups said. “If the police going in would have had any medical training and one of these kits, they could have treated some of those wounds and stopped the bleeding. Some shots will be lethal anyway. But for someone shot in the arm or the leg, that bleeding can be stopped and can be controlled. An hour or more is way too long for someone to lay there and bleed out. But that was just the idea.”

    “This kit is a good tool for us to have, in case of a gunshot or stab wound,” Meridian Detective Dareall Thompson said. “For us it’s a matter of survival.”

    Shirley said the class went well.

    “It was very exciting, very nerve-wracking, but it went very well,” she said. “I think they welcomed it with open arms and I think it will do some good. I hope they never have to use it but in the event they do, they know how.

    “The last thing I want them to do is just throw it in their patrol cars. If there is a school shooting, they’re not going to be driving into the school with their patrol cars. They need it to be on their person. Or if they chase someone and if they’re five blocks away from their car and someone shoots them, they can take care of themselves while they wait on another officer. It will be on them so it’s not thrown into the trunk of the car.”

    Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie said the kit could be useful in the event of a mass shooting, like one the department experienced in 2003 at Lockheed.

    “Having tools available to us to hopefully preserve a life is a tremendous asset to us for law enforcement to have,” Sollie said.

    “Law enforcement personnel are the only ones in a room for moments, and those moments could be life saving.”