ASHWAUBENON, WI (WTAQ) — New emergency public treatment cases have been installed at the Resch Center as part of a $10,000 grant from the BayCare Clinic Foundation.
The citizenAID cases are full of easy-to-use, individually packed first-aid kits that will allow for a quick medical response to mass-casualty events, such as explosions, shootings, or building collapses.
“When we were conducting our [active threat] training at the Resch Center in 2019… we realized that just a standard first aid kit may not be enough. The bandages in a standard first aid kit may not apply in a more significant incident,” Brown County Sheriff Todd Delain told WTAQ. “It was through that training in this building that we realized there was an opportunity to improve it.”
The kits are designed to be useable with only basic first-air training, and could stabilize injured victims until help arrives, according to BayCare Dr. Steven Stroman.
“It’s portable, so someone can grab it and respond to anywhere in the building or in the surrounding vicinity,” Stroman said during a Wednesday press conference. “It’s also designed to be citizen-capable, so even if first responders aren’t yet there…they can open up this bag and literally take the individual bags and throw them to people who are helping.”
The kits include bandages, tourniquets, scissors, gloves, a heat blanket, and sterilizing wipes. They’re designed primarily to stem bleeding. Each kit comes with instructions.
“In a big event at something like the Resch Center, we often have people off-duty from all walks of life. We have nruses, and physicians, and paramedics, first responders, boy scouts… who know how to take care of someone who might be seriously injured,” said Stroman. “They can provide care prior to our first responders even arriving.”
16 cases were purchased with the grant, some of those cases will be installed in the Brown County Expo Center when that project is complete.
