La Porte Hospital provides Sheriff Department officers with trauma kits
7/14/2016
La Porte, Ind. – La Porte Hospital today presented the La Porte County Sheriff’s Department with equipment that may ultimately help save the lives of officers or other victims of injuries that cause massive blood loss.
The High Risk Individual Trauma Kits (HR-ITKs) contain tourniquets, special badges, and dressing that contains materials to clot blood and stop life-threatening bleeding from severe traumatic wounds, such as gun shots or stab wounds.Brian Moore, M.D., general surgeon with La Porte Physicians and a La Porte Hospital Board Member, spearheaded the project after Deputy Keith Waltz proposed the kits last December. Moore took the proposal to La Porte Hospital, which agreed to provide the kits. Moore will personally train the officers on how to use them, starting in August.
“We stand here today wanting to make an investment in the department, and the county,” Moore said at Thursday’s La Porte County Sheriff Merit Board meeting. “There are a lot of scary things going on in the country today, and one of the things we at the hospital would like to do is invest in the lives and the health of those who are putting their lives on the line for us every day.”
Moore said the goal is to have an emergency kit ready at an officer’s disposal if that officer is injured, or encounters an injured victim before an ambulance arrives.
“Most of the deaths that occur in the military and in the line of duty are from blood loss, so the goal of this is to control that, to stop that and give us more time to get that wounded person to the hospital so we can render more appropriate aid to them and limit the disability they would suffer from such injury,” Moore said.
Moore and La Porte Hospital CEO G. Thor Thordarson presented the kits to Sheriff John Boyd and Chief Deputy Ronald Heeg.
“I would just like to say that we have some wonderful partners in our community. None are better than La Porte Hospital, and it’s been that way for a long time,” Boyd said. “Dr. Moore, in particular - it’s not uncommon to see him with our ERT team out training, volunteering his time and his expertise. La Porte Hospital continuously steps up to the plate.”
The hospital also provides lifesaving Narcan kits and training to officers so they can safely reverse suspected opiate overdoses before EMS arrives on scene.
“We’ve had several lives saved as a result of that,” Boyd said. “We are the envy of many Sheriff’s throughout the state of Indiana – of all 92 counties - because very few have great partners with their hospitals like we do. Ours is continually supportive of the men and women of the sheriff’s office, and they continually help us do our job, and help us help other people as well.”
La Porte Hospital also participates in the Police Assisted Addition and Recovery Initiative (PAARI) – a program launched by a variety of community entities that allows for a drug user or addicted person to seek help at a law enforcement agency without fear of being arrested. The clients are assigned volunteer “angels” – highly-trained individuals to help them navigate the system and get appropriate treatment and recovery services.
Back