Direct pressure for serious bleeding
First aid and emergency 5 min 29 CFR 1926.50
Why it matters
Serious bleeding does not wait. Call for help, then press the wound with a clean cloth or the dressing from the kit. If that cloth soaks through, leave it, add another, and keep pressing. The kit and a trained person are on the job because of 1926.50.
The talk
Serious bleeding is a stop-work moment. Call for help first. Then put direct pressure on the wound. Use a clean cloth or the dressing from the first-aid kit. Put your hands on it and press. Do not lift the cloth to see if it stopped. Looking lets the bleeding start again. If the cloth soaks through, do not pull it off. Add another cloth or dressing on top and keep the pressure on. Stay with the injured person. Talk to them. Keep them still. The rest of the crew clears a path for help and sends someone to the gate to meet them.
The first-aid kit and a person trained to give first aid are on this job because of 1926.50. Know who that person is before this talk ends. If the site kit has a tourniquet and a person was trained to use it, that person follows their training. Everyone else keeps pressure on the wound and stays with the injured person. Do not try to build your own tourniquet. Do not ask a coworker to walk you through one. Your work is the pressure, another cloth if the first one soaks through, and staying there until help takes over.
While you press, make sure the call has gone out. Tell the caller where you are on the site, not just the street. The person pressing does not leave to find the kit if someone else can bring it. If you are the trained person and the kit has a tourniquet, you use what you were trained to use. You do not hand that device to someone who has not been trained and tell them to figure it out. If you are not that person, you keep your hands on the cloth. You do not ease off to get the person a drink or to pull a boot. You stay until help takes over or the trained person tells you to move.
Key points
- Call for help, then put direct pressure on serious bleeding.
- Use a clean cloth or the dressing from the first-aid kit.
- If the cloth soaks through, add another on top. Do not pull the first one off.
- Stay with the injured person and keep them still.
- If the kit has a tourniquet, only a person trained to use it follows that training.
- Everyone else keeps pressure and does not invent a tourniquet.
- The kit and the trained person are on the job because of 1926.50.
Do this
- Call for help as soon as you see serious bleeding.
- Press a clean cloth or a dressing on the wound and keep pressing.
- Add another cloth on top if the first one soaks through.
- Stay with the injured person until help takes over.
- Let the trained person use a kit tourniquet if they were trained on it.
Do not do this
- Do not lift the cloth to check if the bleeding has stopped.
- Do not pull off a soaked cloth.
- Do not invent a tourniquet or walk someone through making one.
- Do not hand a tourniquet to a person who has not been trained to use it.
- Do not leave the injured person alone while you look for another idea.
Talk about it
- Who on this crew is trained to give first aid, and where is the kit?
- If a cloth soaks through, what do we do with it?
- Who, if anyone, was trained to use a tourniquet from this kit?
Listens with this phone's voice. Nothing is sent out.
Send to the crew
The crew link opens the talk so each person can read it and sign on their own phone.
Scan at the jobsite. It opens the crew sign-off.