May 6, 2025 • 14 mins
Most people don’t realize how fast someone can bleed out... or how easy it is to stop it (if you know what to do). In this episode, Jimmy and Megan are joined by Miguel for a deep dive into one of the most practical, life-saving skills out there: stopping the bleed.
But don’t expect a boring first aid lecture. We’re talking real talk: how white clothes can trick you, what soaking through a winter jacket really means, and why you should never trust a belt to save a life. You’ll learn how to tell if bleeding is life-threatening, the big mistake people make when they underestimate a “little” wound, and the three tools every responder should know how to use... tune in to find out!
And just wait until you hear what one student did to test how much a pint really is (useless hint: it involved teriyaki sauce and a laptop).
Whether you’ve had Stop the Bleed training or are just curious what all the fuss is about, this episode is packed with street-smart safety tips, hands-on advice, and the kind of stories you’ll definitely want to share at your next team meeting.
Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Megan (00:00):
Okay.
Jimmy (00:02):
Hey, it's Jimmy with another Life and Safety Podcast.
I'm here with Megs and we gotMiguel with us also.
It's a little family gatheringtoday and it's Stop the Bleed
Month, so we're going to talkabout how to stop the bleed,
maybe a little trauma stuff,some of the things we've
encountered during class whileteaching this.
(00:23):
So stop the bleed is a superimportant thing.
80% of traumatic injuriespeople bleeding to death outside
of the hospital is preventableand President Obama saw this
problem and actually wrote anexecutive order to start the
(00:47):
Stop the Bleed campaign.
Now they're based out of Chicago.
They do a great job withgetting stuff out there.
Super simple things is theytook the best traits from the
military medical stuff localemergency medical, emergency
(01:08):
things, aha, arc, ashe, thingslike that and put it together
with the committee of surgeons,the trauma surgeons um union.
(01:32):
So they brought those thingstogether and that's kind of
where tourniquets and stuff likethat kind of came from.
As far as being taught moreregularly, now I became a stop
the bleed instructor in 20 Idon't remember when before COVID
so kind of.
(01:53):
You know a good way to measurethings prior to 2020.
I did it and I think life safetyis still one of the only stop
the bleed instructors as far ascommercial goes, like, so
companies that teach life stopthe bleed and they can give the
stop the bleed certificate.
(02:14):
So what is stop the bleed?
Stop the bleed is just what itsounds like.
Is we're actually stoppingmajor traumatic breathing?
Is we're actually stoppingmajor traumatic breathing?
So we're going to go around thetable a little bit and talk
about what is life-threateningbleeding, because that's what
we're really looking for islife-threatening bleeding.
(02:35):
So with that, I'm going to goto our lead instructor, megan,
first.
Megan (02:40):
Ooh, la la.
Jimmy (02:40):
Yeah, yeah, give me a sign or symptom of
life-threatening bleeding.
Megan (02:48):
Alrighty.
Well, I'm going to steal theobvious one.
If there is a puddle of bloodby the patient, we go by the
patient's fist size.
So if you have the patient,make a fist and then look at the
back of their fist, that'sabout the size of the puddle
that we're looking for Now, thatbeing said, I don't expect you
to actually stop and ask apatient who is having
(03:09):
life-threatening bleeding wait,make a fist, let me look at it.
No, but you can like take alook and look at the back of
their hand and see about how bigthat is.
So if we're talking aboutlife-threatening bleeding,
humans have 10 to 12 pints ofblood in their body at any given
moment.
A larger human is going to havemore blood in their body when
(03:30):
you donate blood.
You donate a pint of blood andyour body can compensate for
that, meaning it can sort ofmanage to lose that much blood
and still function properly.
You might get a little bitdizzy, you might feel a little
lightheaded, but you're stillfunctioning.
You know, if you've everdonated blood, they give you
some you know orange juice and alittle cracker thing and then
you're good to go.
Um, once you start to lose morethan one pint of blood.
(03:54):
That's when it starts to becomedangerous.
Uh, a pint of liquid is a pretty, pretty large, large, that's
words.
Um, it's a pretty significantamount of liquid.
But if you're taking intoaccount, what's the person
sitting on, what are theywearing?
If they're stabbed in the sideand then you have a pint of
blood come out from their side,if they're wearing, you know, a
(04:17):
cotton shirt and a cotton jacket, that's going to soak up a lot
of blood.
If they're sitting on a paddedchair, that's going to soak up a
lot of blood.
So how much of that blood isreally going to make it to the
ground?
Not that much.
So that's why we use the sizeof the patient's fist.
If the puddle is larger thanthe size of the patient's fist
and we've taken into account howmuch blood is really making it
to the ground, that's asignificant amount and they're
(04:39):
probably past the point of beingable to compensate.
So we need to start treatingfor blood loss immediately and
start to handle that.
Miguel (04:46):
It's a lot of words yeah , a lot of words, very good job,
though they're gonna be cold aswell.
I know that one for a fact likecold to the touch yeah,
definitely like it could be 100degrees outside and they're
still gonna be feeling like likethey need a jacket and a
blanket.
Megan (05:04):
Witnessed that one before .
So not only are they feel coldto the touch by you touching
them, but they also they'll tellyou they feel cold.
Miguel (05:10):
Yeah, they'll be shivering sometimes.
Yeah, definitely.
Megan (05:14):
Alrighty.
So that's some signs andsymptoms to look out for if
they're bleeding.
What are some ways that we cantreat bleeding Our three big
ones?
Miguel (05:24):
Direct pressure.
Megan (05:25):
Good direct pressure.
What does that mean?
Miguel (05:28):
That means we're going to apply pressure to the top of
the wound.
Megan (05:33):
Exactly exactly as it sounds Direct pressure.
Put pressure directly on thewound.
Glove up guys, make sure you'reprotecting yourselves from any
blood-borne pathogens or anythings that might, you know,
cause harm to you.
So wear your gloves and thenjust throw your weight behind it
and put weight onto that sothat the blood stops coming out
of the wound.
It's pretty simple Our easiestand least intensive way of
(06:00):
stopping the bleed.
It's going to work on prettymuch any type of wound anywhere
on the body and it's a goodgo-to.
Jimmy (06:07):
Also one of the most effective things we can do right
is we just hold pressure.
Hold pressure Now when we aredoing that.
So I think some really goodthings.
So one of the things I wantedto point out with megan said
about the puddle I'm gonnacircle back to that real quick.
What if the person's on mud inmud?
Are we gonna see that puddle ofblood?
(06:29):
no, not so much so that's, wegot to go back to the clothes,
right?
Uh, what about if the person'sin the snow?
We're gonna see that right,yeah much more, much more.
right, I think I don't know if Iever told any of you guys the
story.
We had a um, we were doing anonline class during covid and
(06:50):
one of our students on zoom hecouldn't really just visualize
how big of a size of a fist wasand they said, well, think of,
like you know, the pint likeMegan was bringing up, and he
literally poured a pint ofteriyaki sauce because that's
what he had and he took it andhe was in the snow, he was at
(07:14):
his snow house, you know, in themountains, and he walked out to
the snow and he threw it on thething.
He's like, oh, and he actuallyshowed, took the laptop and he
showed the glass.
He's like that's not that much.
and I was like, yeah, that'swhat I'm trying to tell you yeah
you know the pint is huge, butthe size of the fist, that size
(07:34):
you know being absorbed and allthose other things that megan
talked about, is definitelydifferent you mentioned clothes.
Megan (07:39):
I want to touch on that.
In the same way of you know,snow is white.
You're going to see the bloodthere.
White clothes are going to showit a lot better than black
clothes, especially a big, bulkyblack jacket with a wound to
the abdomen.
It's going to hide it a lotmore effectively than you know a
thin white shirt or somethingabsolutely, absolutely.
Jimmy (07:58):
So we're holding pressure .
It's seeping through, it's justnot holding it.
We can't keep the blood insidethe person.
We need to change our game orstep our game up.
Go to our next tool and that'sgoing to be wound packing right,
so we wound pack.
So we remember we pack limbs,all right.
(08:19):
Then we seal the box, soanything on our chest.
So if you took the person'shead off, their limbs off,
what's left?
The torso?
That's the box.
We're holding pressure there.
We're holding pressure thereand the body cavity.
If we start wound packinginside that, we're gonna move
(08:39):
the organs.
We're going to move the stomach, you know, the intestines.
It's going to be too big, toomuch stuff going on there.
We're going to cause moreproblems.
Also, we don't have enoughgauze with us.
I was teaching a littlerefresher class in-house last
night and we put this three-inchwide roll of roller gauze
(09:04):
that's four yards long into afour-inch gauze, a small
four-inch by four-inch cube, andwe fit it on there.
Megan (09:14):
To be clear, it's not the full cube that's empty.
It's a wound cube which, if youcome take a class with us, you
get to play with them.
But the wound he's talkingabout is about A little bit
bigger than the average thumband you were able to fit, you
know, an entire roll of gauze inthere.
Jimmy (09:32):
Yeah, it's my superpower.
Megan (09:36):
No, I'm teasing, it could be your superpower too.
It could be.
Stop teasing, it could be yoursuperpower too.
Jimmy (09:40):
It could be.
Stopping the bleed could beyour superpower, Right.
So we're going to pack thewound and then tourniquet.
If we have a tourniquet, acommercial tourniquet is
preferred the cat tourniquetfrom North America Rescue.
Don't recommend buying atourniquet on Amazon.
Megan (10:00):
In fact recommend against it.
Jimmy (10:02):
Don't always know what you're going to get A Sam
tourniquet or a Soft Tee Widetourniquet?
Those are soft tee widetourniquet.
Those are my three favoritetourniquets out there.
Um, highly recommend those andit's their ease for ease of use.
So a lot of times we're gettingquestioned and I'll ask this up
to the other instructors um,what do you guys tell people
(10:25):
when they say, hey, what?
What about a belt?
Because we've heard belts workgreat.
For my whole career, almost mywhole life, I've heard If
somebody's bleeding really bad,just put a belt on and use a
belt as a tourniquet.
What have you?
How do you answer that question?
What's your thoughts, what'syour take?
Miguel (10:48):
Anybody, I feel like it's not as effective.
The tourniquet will stop thecomplete blood flow from coming
out of that wound, while thebelt I don't know, at least
personally it's a lot harder touse and get it to that same
standard that the actualtourniquet itself does.
Megan (11:10):
Yeah, absolutely.
One of the phrases that I liketo use is a commercial
tourniquet will stop the bloodflow, while an improvised
tourniquet might slow it down,but it's not going to ever fully
stop the blood flow, especiallywith a belt.
Now a belt you know my belts,most belts you know available,
(11:31):
they have the belt notches, butthe chances of the belt notch
being perfectly sized to be ableto stop the blood from the limb
that you're on is ridiculouslysmall, nearing impossible, I
would say.
And then also, part of whatmakes a commercial tourniquet
really effective is thatwindlass, that sort of
stick-like part of it thatallows you to tighten it down.
(11:51):
So you tighten it down as muchas you can with the velcro and
then you take that strap, thewindlass stick sort of, and
twist it and that's able to getthat final bit of tightness
that's able to fully block offthose blood vessels and actually
stop the bleed.
And that's not something thatyou're going to be able to get
with a belt, especially, um, youknow, your average leather or
(12:12):
leather-esque belt.
Um, they found that you wouldhave to have something
equivalent to like a chair legto actually be able to be that
windless and tighten it down andget that full tightness and
that's just not a realisticthing to carry around with you.
I mean, I don, I don't knowabout you, but I don't carry a
chair leg in my back pocket.
Miguel (12:29):
I sure don't either.
Jimmy (12:31):
I wish I did Very versatile Always tourniquet the
limbs, pack the joints and sealthe box.
And those are just some reallyeasy things to think about on
how to control bleeding.
Easy things to think about onhow to control bleeding.
(12:52):
Uh, look out for life safety.
Social media pages.
We're gonna probably offer atleast one or two free stop to
bleed classes on a saturday.
If you're interested, be on thelookout and we'll get you
signed up not to shamelesslyplug, but I do highly recommend
those.
Megan (13:06):
I've made my family members go take them when they
were offered last year.
So Jimmy got to experience myfamily on that.
But, it's really good.
My family feels a lot moreprepared, so that I'm not the
only one who knows how to stopthe bleed.
Jimmy (13:21):
Yeah, a lot of fun classes.
You come out, you'll meet theteam and we'll hang out.
All right, team, be safe, Peace.
Okay.
Jimmy (00:02):
Hey, it's Jimmy with another Life and Safety Podcast.
I'm here with Megs and we gotMiguel with us also.
It's a little family gatheringtoday and it's Stop the Bleed
Month, so we're going to talkabout how to stop the bleed,
maybe a little trauma stuff,some of the things we've
encountered during class whileteaching this.
(00:23):
So stop the bleed is a superimportant thing.
80% of traumatic injuriespeople bleeding to death outside
of the hospital is preventableand President Obama saw this
problem and actually wrote anexecutive order to start the
(00:47):
Stop the Bleed campaign.
Now they're based out of Chicago.
They do a great job withgetting stuff out there.
Super simple things is theytook the best traits from the
military medical stuff localemergency medical, emergency
(01:08):
things, aha, arc, ashe, thingslike that and put it together
with the committee of surgeons,the trauma surgeons um union.
(01:32):
So they brought those thingstogether and that's kind of
where tourniquets and stuff likethat kind of came from.
As far as being taught moreregularly, now I became a stop
the bleed instructor in 20 Idon't remember when before COVID
so kind of.
(01:53):
You know a good way to measurethings prior to 2020.
I did it and I think life safetyis still one of the only stop
the bleed instructors as far ascommercial goes, like, so
companies that teach life stopthe bleed and they can give the
stop the bleed certificate.
(02:14):
So what is stop the bleed?
Stop the bleed is just what itsounds like.
Is we're actually stoppingmajor traumatic breathing?
Is we're actually stoppingmajor traumatic breathing?
So we're going to go around thetable a little bit and talk
about what is life-threateningbleeding, because that's what
we're really looking for islife-threatening bleeding.
(02:35):
So with that, I'm going to goto our lead instructor, megan,
first.
Megan (02:40):
Ooh, la la.
Jimmy (02:40):
Yeah, yeah, give me a sign or symptom of
life-threatening bleeding.
Megan (02:48):
Alrighty.
Well, I'm going to steal theobvious one.
If there is a puddle of bloodby the patient, we go by the
patient's fist size.
So if you have the patient,make a fist and then look at the
back of their fist, that'sabout the size of the puddle
that we're looking for Now, thatbeing said, I don't expect you
to actually stop and ask apatient who is having
(03:09):
life-threatening bleeding wait,make a fist, let me look at it.
No, but you can like take alook and look at the back of
their hand and see about how bigthat is.
So if we're talking aboutlife-threatening bleeding,
humans have 10 to 12 pints ofblood in their body at any given
moment.
A larger human is going to havemore blood in their body when
(03:30):
you donate blood.
You donate a pint of blood andyour body can compensate for
that, meaning it can sort ofmanage to lose that much blood
and still function properly.
You might get a little bitdizzy, you might feel a little
lightheaded, but you're stillfunctioning.
You know, if you've everdonated blood, they give you
some you know orange juice and alittle cracker thing and then
you're good to go.
Um, once you start to lose morethan one pint of blood.
(03:54):
That's when it starts to becomedangerous.
Uh, a pint of liquid is a pretty, pretty large, large, that's
words.
Um, it's a pretty significantamount of liquid.
But if you're taking intoaccount, what's the person
sitting on, what are theywearing?
If they're stabbed in the sideand then you have a pint of
blood come out from their side,if they're wearing, you know, a
(04:17):
cotton shirt and a cotton jacket, that's going to soak up a lot
of blood.
If they're sitting on a paddedchair, that's going to soak up a
lot of blood.
So how much of that blood isreally going to make it to the
ground?
Not that much.
So that's why we use the sizeof the patient's fist.
If the puddle is larger thanthe size of the patient's fist
and we've taken into account howmuch blood is really making it
to the ground, that's asignificant amount and they're
(04:39):
probably past the point of beingable to compensate.
So we need to start treatingfor blood loss immediately and
start to handle that.
Miguel (04:46):
It's a lot of words yeah , a lot of words, very good job,
though they're gonna be cold aswell.
I know that one for a fact likecold to the touch yeah,
definitely like it could be 100degrees outside and they're
still gonna be feeling like likethey need a jacket and a
blanket.
Megan (05:04):
Witnessed that one before .
So not only are they feel coldto the touch by you touching
them, but they also they'll tellyou they feel cold.
Miguel (05:10):
Yeah, they'll be shivering sometimes.
Yeah, definitely.
Megan (05:14):
Alrighty.
So that's some signs andsymptoms to look out for if
they're bleeding.
What are some ways that we cantreat bleeding Our three big
ones?
Miguel (05:24):
Direct pressure.
Megan (05:25):
Good direct pressure.
What does that mean?
Miguel (05:28):
That means we're going to apply pressure to the top of
the wound.
Megan (05:33):
Exactly exactly as it sounds Direct pressure.
Put pressure directly on thewound.
Glove up guys, make sure you'reprotecting yourselves from any
blood-borne pathogens or anythings that might, you know,
cause harm to you.
So wear your gloves and thenjust throw your weight behind it
and put weight onto that sothat the blood stops coming out
of the wound.
It's pretty simple Our easiestand least intensive way of
(06:00):
stopping the bleed.
It's going to work on prettymuch any type of wound anywhere
on the body and it's a goodgo-to.
Jimmy (06:07):
Also one of the most effective things we can do right
is we just hold pressure.
Hold pressure Now when we aredoing that.
So I think some really goodthings.
So one of the things I wantedto point out with megan said
about the puddle I'm gonnacircle back to that real quick.
What if the person's on mud inmud?
Are we gonna see that puddle ofblood?
(06:29):
no, not so much so that's, wegot to go back to the clothes,
right?
Uh, what about if the person'sin the snow?
We're gonna see that right,yeah much more, much more.
right, I think I don't know if Iever told any of you guys the
story.
We had a um, we were doing anonline class during covid and
(06:50):
one of our students on zoom hecouldn't really just visualize
how big of a size of a fist wasand they said, well, think of,
like you know, the pint likeMegan was bringing up, and he
literally poured a pint ofteriyaki sauce because that's
what he had and he took it andhe was in the snow, he was at
(07:14):
his snow house, you know, in themountains, and he walked out to
the snow and he threw it on thething.
He's like, oh, and he actuallyshowed, took the laptop and he
showed the glass.
He's like that's not that much.
and I was like, yeah, that'swhat I'm trying to tell you yeah
you know the pint is huge, butthe size of the fist, that size
(07:34):
you know being absorbed and allthose other things that megan
talked about, is definitelydifferent you mentioned clothes.
Megan (07:39):
I want to touch on that.
In the same way of you know,snow is white.
You're going to see the bloodthere.
White clothes are going to showit a lot better than black
clothes, especially a big, bulkyblack jacket with a wound to
the abdomen.
It's going to hide it a lotmore effectively than you know a
thin white shirt or somethingabsolutely, absolutely.
Jimmy (07:58):
So we're holding pressure .
It's seeping through, it's justnot holding it.
We can't keep the blood insidethe person.
We need to change our game orstep our game up.
Go to our next tool and that'sgoing to be wound packing right,
so we wound pack.
So we remember we pack limbs,all right.
(08:19):
Then we seal the box, soanything on our chest.
So if you took the person'shead off, their limbs off,
what's left?
The torso?
That's the box.
We're holding pressure there.
We're holding pressure thereand the body cavity.
If we start wound packinginside that, we're gonna move
(08:39):
the organs.
We're going to move the stomach, you know, the intestines.
It's going to be too big, toomuch stuff going on there.
We're going to cause moreproblems.
Also, we don't have enoughgauze with us.
I was teaching a littlerefresher class in-house last
night and we put this three-inchwide roll of roller gauze
(09:04):
that's four yards long into afour-inch gauze, a small
four-inch by four-inch cube, andwe fit it on there.
Megan (09:14):
To be clear, it's not the full cube that's empty.
It's a wound cube which, if youcome take a class with us, you
get to play with them.
But the wound he's talkingabout is about A little bit
bigger than the average thumband you were able to fit, you
know, an entire roll of gauze inthere.
Jimmy (09:32):
Yeah, it's my superpower.
Megan (09:36):
No, I'm teasing, it could be your superpower too.
It could be.
Stop teasing, it could be yoursuperpower too.
Jimmy (09:40):
It could be.
Stopping the bleed could beyour superpower, Right.
So we're going to pack thewound and then tourniquet.
If we have a tourniquet, acommercial tourniquet is
preferred the cat tourniquetfrom North America Rescue.
Don't recommend buying atourniquet on Amazon.
Megan (10:00):
In fact recommend against it.
Jimmy (10:02):
Don't always know what you're going to get A Sam
tourniquet or a Soft Tee Widetourniquet?
Those are soft tee widetourniquet.
Those are my three favoritetourniquets out there.
Um, highly recommend those andit's their ease for ease of use.
So a lot of times we're gettingquestioned and I'll ask this up
to the other instructors um,what do you guys tell people
(10:25):
when they say, hey, what?
What about a belt?
Because we've heard belts workgreat.
For my whole career, almost mywhole life, I've heard If
somebody's bleeding really bad,just put a belt on and use a
belt as a tourniquet.
What have you?
How do you answer that question?
What's your thoughts, what'syour take?
Miguel (10:48):
Anybody, I feel like it's not as effective.
The tourniquet will stop thecomplete blood flow from coming
out of that wound, while thebelt I don't know, at least
personally it's a lot harder touse and get it to that same
standard that the actualtourniquet itself does.
Megan (11:10):
Yeah, absolutely.
One of the phrases that I liketo use is a commercial
tourniquet will stop the bloodflow, while an improvised
tourniquet might slow it down,but it's not going to ever fully
stop the blood flow, especiallywith a belt.
Now a belt you know my belts,most belts you know available,
(11:31):
they have the belt notches, butthe chances of the belt notch
being perfectly sized to be ableto stop the blood from the limb
that you're on is ridiculouslysmall, nearing impossible, I
would say.
And then also, part of whatmakes a commercial tourniquet
really effective is thatwindlass, that sort of
stick-like part of it thatallows you to tighten it down.
(11:51):
So you tighten it down as muchas you can with the velcro and
then you take that strap, thewindlass stick sort of, and
twist it and that's able to getthat final bit of tightness
that's able to fully block offthose blood vessels and actually
stop the bleed.
And that's not something thatyou're going to be able to get
with a belt, especially, um, youknow, your average leather or
(12:12):
leather-esque belt.
Um, they found that you wouldhave to have something
equivalent to like a chair legto actually be able to be that
windless and tighten it down andget that full tightness and
that's just not a realisticthing to carry around with you.
I mean, I don, I don't knowabout you, but I don't carry a
chair leg in my back pocket.
Miguel (12:29):
I sure don't either.
Jimmy (12:31):
I wish I did Very versatile Always tourniquet the
limbs, pack the joints and sealthe box.
And those are just some reallyeasy things to think about on
how to control bleeding.
Easy things to think about onhow to control bleeding.
(12:52):
Uh, look out for life safety.
Social media pages.
We're gonna probably offer atleast one or two free stop to
bleed classes on a saturday.
If you're interested, be on thelookout and we'll get you
signed up not to shamelesslyplug, but I do highly recommend
those.
Megan (13:06):
I've made my family members go take them when they
were offered last year.
So Jimmy got to experience myfamily on that.
But, it's really good.
My family feels a lot moreprepared, so that I'm not the
only one who knows how to stopthe bleed.
Jimmy (13:21):
Yeah, a lot of fun classes.
You come out, you'll meet theteam and we'll hang out.
All right, team, be safe, Peace.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.