Roads for Life (RFL) has started organizing a series of training sessions as part of the “Stop the Bleed” program which was launched in July under the patronage of the Minister of Public Health, Minister Jamil Jabak and the Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Minister Raya Haffar El Hassan. Within the first month of launching Stop The Bleed, 400 members of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF), of varying ranks and sectors, took and completed the bleeding control course during the month of August .
In total, 200 members of the Bureau of Protection and Intervention of the Information Department, 80 members of the Black Panthers Regiment (Al Fuhud) and 120 members of the S.W.A.T team participated in the first round of sessions of Stop The Bleed.
Roads For Life President Zeina Kassar Kassem said that the sessions “began at a record speed”, asserting that “non-specialists need, more than professionals, to practice a skill as simple as the one needed to stop the bleed because most of the time they are the ones present on the scene of the accident before the ambulance arrives”.
“The ISF participated in the sessions following the steps of the Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Minister Raya Haffar El Hassan who attended the first course of the program. The ISF also followed the instructions of Major General Imad Othman who encouraged them to pursue these courses for their importance in saving lives during the “’Golden Hour’ of trauma”, Kassem added.
Kassem insisted that “people from all segments of society should take part in this life saving program. All companies and institutions of the public and private sector should enroll in “Stop the Bleed”, whose rights are owned by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Lebanon Chapter through its Governor, Dr. Ghassan Nawfal, and its President, Dr. Ahmad Zaatari; who both supervise the nurses that provide the training”.
Kassem concluded by announcing that Stop the Bleed, in collaboration with “Quest Education center” in Ashrafieh, will “target the universities and schools starting September”.