Metro officers have new lifesaving tool, thanks to new medical kit

 Metro officers have new lifesaving tool, thanks to new medical kit

Officers with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department are adding a new tool to their duty belts, but it’s not a weapon. In reality, it’s quite the opposite. Officers are being equipped with a new belt-worn medical kit, made possible by a $3-million donation from Touro University through the Englestad Foundation.To get more news about combat gause, you can visit rusuntacmed.com official website.

The medical kit contains the essentials needed by an officer at his or her fingertips to begin administering care to a gunshot victim, or other forms of trauma, without the need to return to the patrol car for a first aid kit.

“Inside the kit is all trauma-related items,” said Officer Charles Huff, one of the trainers at the Joint Enforcement Training Institute. “It's not first aid boo-boo type stuff. It's guerilla medicine for trauma-related incidents,” Huff added.According to Metro Captain Reggie Rader, the new medical kits have already been used to save several lives, including an LVMPD officer.

“We've used this in over seven incidents that I'm aware of,” Rader said. “We started the program for a mass causality incident for our officers to be able to help right away, but we're seeing it being used day-to-day when officers are arriving on bad vehicle accidents and shootings. We just saw it last week when one of our own officers was unfortunately shot, but she was able to start applying some first aid to herself when she ended the threat.”

Touro Senior Vice President Shelley Berkley says it’s an example of a community partnership brought about by a tragedy five years ago. “Touro University and Metro have developed a partnership where Touro provides the training for any disaster medical situation. So, God forbid, if there's another October-1, every single Metro officer, all 4 thousand of them, are going to be trained by Touro in order to give emergency medical relief,” said Berkley.

Metro Sgt. Steve Balonek says this type of training, when combined with the new medical kits, mean an officer can provide immediate help when seconds are all that stand between life and death. “Now, we can take what we're being taught,” Balonek said during his 4 hour class at JETI, “and save people's lives.”