During the Saugus High School shooting that left two students dead Thursday, special on-site medical kits were deployed that were inspired by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.
It's part of the American College of Surgeons' "Stop the Bleed" program, which has now trained more than 1 million people globally to help slow severe bleeding until professional help arrives.
Dr. Bud Lawrence and his two daughters have supplied emergency kits to high schools in Santa Clarita through a related nonprofit they formed called "Keep the Pressure." Lawrence said his daughters raised more than $100,000 in order to donate bleed kits to schools in the William S. Hart School District.
"Their idea was to make sure these kits can be available to anyone in any classroom and anyone can use them," Lawrence said, "and they go along with, of course, the educational piece."
"Keep the Pressure" provided the kits used to initially treat the victims at the high school.
"This would be things like tourniquets, special gauze called QuikClot gauze, [which] helps your body form clots," Lawrence said.
Coincidentally, Lawrence directs emergency medicine at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, where four students shot at Saugus High were treated.
Deputy James Callahan, a school resource officer at Saugus High, was one of the first to arrive at the scene of the shooting Thursday. During a press conference Friday he talked about using "Keep the Pressure" kits in the aftermath of the violence. "Having those supplies on hand was definitely a plus," he said.
According to Lawrence's daughter Cambria, the idea for "Keep the Pressure" came right about the time she was entering high school. "I was absolutely terrified of things like school shootings and natural disasters, and so was my sister," she said.
She and her sister, Maci, said they hope that the bleed kits are making people feel safer at school.
"Although there's no way for us to prevent tragedies like this that happen, we can take a precaution and be able to protect people and know that there is information out there and supplies people can use to keep them safe," Cambria said.
Her hope was that the kits would never be needed. On Thursday, they were.
