Prisma Health recognizes May as National Trauma Awareness Month

Level I Trauma Center is an important community resource

Prisma Health and the American Trauma Society (ATS) recognize May as National Trauma Awareness Month. This year, the ATS is focusing on Firearm Injury Prevention. In collaboration with ATS, Prisma Health Richland Hospital, the only Level I Trauma Center in the Midlands, wants to remind the community of the importance of household gun safety.

According to the ATS, firearm violence resulted in over 39,773 deaths in 2017. To reduce this risk, ATS provides these tips to gun owners for household safety:

• Store guns in a securely locked place out of unauthorized reach.
• Store bullets in a separate secure place from guns.
• Always store guns unloaded and in the uncocked position.
• Take gun safety courses to learn the correct safest way to use a gun.

As the Midlands region’s only Level I Trauma Center, Prisma Health Richland Hospital is an important community resource cares which cares for over 3,000 trauma patients annually including patients with firearm related injuries.

Being a Level I Trauma Center, the highest designation for trauma centers by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and the state of South Carolina, Prisma Health Richland Hospital provides valuable experience with a team of experts that are standing by 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide the highest level of trauma care.

Prisma Health Children’s Hospital–Midlands offers the only Pediatric Trauma Center in the Midlands, and was the first in the state to be an ACS-verified Level II Pediatric Trauma Center. 

Team members at the trauma center also offer community injury prevention programs, including:

• Project READY (Realistic Education about Dying Young) exposes adolescents to the Prisma Health Trauma Center. During a Project READY session, participants will experience firsthand the daily challenges injured trauma patients face by:
  • Talking with trauma surgeons and Emergency Room (ER) doctors
  • Seeing inside a real ER, trauma bay and morgue
  • Feeling real equipment used to treat trauma patients
  • Witnessing a pretend trauma patient scene in the ER
  • Interacting with physical, occupational and speech therapists
• Stop the Bleed courses are designed to train individuals in bleeding control techniques. Nationwide, there is a disturbing rise in the number of mass shooting across all venue types. The No. 1 cause of death in these tragedies is bleeding from uncontrolled bleed. Through Stop the Bleed education, residents get the training to control bleeding before professional help arrives.
• ThinkFirst Adults is a program offered to educate older adults concerned about falling and implement strategies to prevent falls. The program includes an interactive presentation consisting of:
  • An overview of risk factors that contribute to falls
  • Discussion on minimizing falls in the home
  • Talking with physicians
  • Nutrition
  • Medications
• ThinkFirst Teens educates youth and teens how to reduce their risk for traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries. The program is offered for grades one to 12 and give students the opportunity to participate in an interactive session with videos, VIP speakers and more.

For more information on Prisma Health Trauma Center injury prevention programs and registration, visit PalmettoHealth.org/Trauma.