Plymouth Residents Create Bleeding Control Kits To Enhance School Safety
Two years ago, 19 students and two teachers were fatally shot at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX, while many others were severely wounded.
As that scene played out, more than 1,300 miles north in the Minneapolis suburb of Plymouth, Dr. Savahanna Wagner felt the call to help.
“When we got the news about Uvalde, we said we’re not working fast enough,” said Wagner, an internal medicine physician who lives in Plymouth. “We thought, I wish we’d have, maybe a small way that we can contribute to the safety and preparedness of our community and of our schools.”
Schools have basic first aid kits, along with AEDs to help resuscitate someone suffering from a cardiac arrest. But they haven’t traditionally had the equipment to help if someone was bleeding profusely.
It’s why Wagner partnered with longtime friend Meg Soultz — who’s a paramedic and police officer based in Plymouth — to establish Rescue in Color, which specializes in bleeding control kits.
Dr. Savahanna Wagner and Meg Soultz are the founders of Rescue in Color.
“We call it Rescue in Color because our kit and our instructions are color-coded with the inside of the bag,” Soultz said. “I want to make sure that all the language that we use, the instructions that we use, are approachable for folks.”
Rescue in Color’s bleeding control kits are designed to be administered by minimally-trained bystanders.
“So if you have a limb injury, we see here the picture that indicates, ‘okay I’ve got a limb injury. I need the orange stuff,'” said Soultz. “If there’s an injury to what we refer to as a junction, or where the limbs meet the body, now I’m gonna have to wound pack, and all that’s in the green section. Or if there’s a penetrating trauma to the chest or the back, you’ve got a puncture wound to the chest, now we’re gonna move onto a chest seal.”
Essentially, the kits are designed so that people who aren’t trained first responders — like classroom teachers — can stop the bleeding as they wait for the professionals to arrive.
“This equipment can, will, and does save lives every day,” said Wagner.
Availability in Wayzata Schools
The life-saving potential is why Wagner and Soultz are on a mission to put the Rescue in Color kits in as many schools as possible.
“All of our Rescue in Color kits are in or near the AED cabinet,” said Jean Parsons, a nurse based at Wayzata High School who also serves as the school’s health services supervisor.
Every school in the Wayzata School District has at least one Rescue in Color kit. At the high school, they have 11.
At Wayzata High School, the Rescue in Color kits are located alongside the automated external defibrillator (AED).
“The kits are easy to use for a medically trained person or a lay person,” said Parsons. “In that they open up, you can look at the type of wound that you have presented to you and figure out, what is the best treatment plan.”
Having the kits inside of a school is a start, but the real hope for Wagner and Soultz is to one day have them in every classroom.
“Because those first few minutes in an accident are really, really critical,” Wagner said.
The Rescue in Color kits cost about $100 apiece.
Related: Wayzata Students Propose Solutions to Prevent School Shootings
Wayzata High School
