Emergency Health Sciences offers mass casualty training to airport employees

Dozens of airport employees at the San Antonio International Airport learned how to help victims in mass casualty events during training led by Terry Eaton, assistant professor of Emergency Health Sciences and civilian training officer.

The training program, Stop the Bleed, familiarized airport workers with how to use special kits, called I-Paks, and also taught them how to assess and stabilize injuries until first responders arrive. The kits, which are located throughout the airport, include gloves, scissors, a chest seal, tourniquet, combat gauze and a space blanket.

Eaton explained how to assess injuries using the acronym MARCH, which calls for taking note of and addressing massive bleeding, airway, respiration, circulation and hypothermia.

“During an active shooter (situation), first responders may not be able to get in or may be delayed getting in,” Eaton said, explaining the need for airport workers to be ready to act. “In the meantime, people are in there bleeding.”

Eaton trained six two-hour classes over the course of three days in December, using the classroom at the airport fire station.

He said he hopes to offer the training on an ongoing basis. Dawson Frank, Airport Emergency Manager for the San Antonio Airport System, said he was very pleased with the training, a collaboration he had sought out with the UT Health San Antonio. He noted that Eaton partnered with the Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting staff at San Antonio Fire Department 23, which is located at San Antonio International Airport.

“Our employees thrilled by the hands-on interactive training and our executives are impressed that 68 of our staff are now better prepared just in case,” he noted.