Every school in the Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District will now be equipped with necessary items if faced with a medical emergency.
MedStat has donated 25 medical emergency kit bags to the district, enough for the safety teams and their nurses at schools countywide. The school board officially received the bags on Thursday afternoon.
Each bag contains necessary items in case of an emergency, such as bandages, ice packs, gauze and tourniquets.
“There’s quite a bit of stuff in this little bitty bag that can potentially save someone’s life,” Dave Eldridge, director of operations for MedStat, said on Thursday.
The MedStat team was especially excited about the tourniquets included in each of the bags on Thursday. They demonstrated to representatives of the school district how to properly use one, in the case of something such as a school shooting. Those included Superintendent Mary Brown; her assistant, Shaunteria Flowers; Assistant Superintendent Charles Johnson; Anjuan Brown, head of safety and security; and Gwashayla Durr, secretary of safety and security.
Eric Sprayberry, senior operations supervisor for MedStat, said that these kits will help reduce their time seeing the patients so they can transport them to hospitals faster.
Eric Sprayberry, center, and Dave Eldridge, right, show Assistant Superintendent Charles Johnson, left, the medical supplies inside the emergency kit bags MedStat donated to the Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District.
When supplies run out, all safety teams or nurses have to do is give MedStat a call, and they’ll replace whatever is needed free of charge. “We’re just happy to help,” Eldridge said.
“We thank MedStat for their donation. It’ll definitely be used to support our vision in the district and definitely in the department of safety and security,” Johnson said.
Eldridge also said free instructional classes can be offered on how to use some of these items if the school district desires.
He said that one of the main courses they offer shows how to administer a tourniquet correctly and what to do if faced with a wound that causes major bleeding. He said that the tourniquets are like the ones used in the military and have been proven to be very helpful in saving lives as well as limbs.
• Contact Kerrigan Herret at 581-7233 or kherret@gwcommonwealth.com.
