By: Emma Wheeler | WCTV Eyewitness News 

VALDOSTA, Ga. (WCTV) — A new kind of medical training is catching on at schools nationwide, including in South Georgia.

The Stop the Bleed campaign teaches school staff how to handle victims of trauma, like after an active shooter. More than 125,000 teachers across the country have gotten involved. Stop the Bleed landed in Georgia in 2017. The Georgia Trauma Commission has allotted $1 million to the initiative.

The commission’s goal is to get medical kits in every public school across the state.

The kits include tourniquetes and other tools to control bleeding. The campaign also sponsors training sessions for school staff so they know what to do in case of an emergency. That training would be done by South Georgia Medical Center Mobile Health Care Services.

EMT staff with SGMC said, like CPR, this bystander medical training is proven to save lives, and you never know when it will be needed.

“You don’t know, and it’s not just for those mass casualties. It’s for anything that could happen on the playground at school or in the parking lot of whatever. If you can make a difference in the patients’ life, that’s what it’s all about,” said Todd Daniel, Training Captain at South Georgia Medical Center for Mobile Health Care Services. “It’s working, it’s saving lives. If they can stop the bleeding on a critical patient like that before we can get there, it makes all the difference in the world.”

EMTs have approached several schools in the region. Lanier County Schools has committed to the campaign, Valdosta City Schools and Lowndes County Schools are still undecided.

More information can be found at here.

(WCTV)