Kids ages 5-13 are being asked learn emergency first aid in the event of a school shooting

As a journalist and American citizen, I never thought I would see the day where kids were learning emergency first aid in the event of a school shooting.

But here I was, in a classroom inside Denver Health — watching 6-year-old Amun stuff a fake leg with gauze. Amun was one of roughly 15 students who were listening to Missy Anderson, an RN and the Pediatric Trauma Program Manager at hospital, as she taught them how to stop bleeding in an emergency.

“I’ve trained thousands — probably 5,000 to 6,000 kids,” Anderson said. “When I’m chatting with kids I ask them how are ways you can get big owies. I don’t say massive hemorrhage- they don’t know what that means. I say big owies that bleed really big, and I have had kids that say if we get shot at school and I acknowledge that because it is a true statement, but we move on.”

Anderson has been teaching Stop the Bleed , a program born of a federal interagency group that was convened by the White House to respond to everyday emergencies and natural disasters — to adults since 2016.

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But, in 2018, she started teaching kids ages 5-13 as schools and other groups started approaching her, asking her to teach the course to their kids in the event of a school shooting.

“We’re getting two to three requests a week to go train girl scout troops, boy scout troops. Sometimes it’s just hey I got a group of kids together will you help train them?” said Anderson.

It is a poignant statement that kids are not only aware of the climate our country is in, but they are now being trained on how to respond to it. According to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, 194 kids were killed in school shootings in the five years between 2018 and 2022.

That is roughly the same total as the 201 that were killed in the 18 years prior, including the Columbine School Shooting. In the fall of 2023, the American Academy of Pediatrics named gun violence the leading cause of death among U.S. children.

In Stop the Bleed, Anderson teaches kids how to apply pressure to a wound, how to apply tourniquets, and how to remain calm in situations where someone may need their help.

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Even though this class was not created with the intent of responding to school shootings, it is now being used by more schools and other groups to hopefully save lives in the time between when a shooting occurs and when first responders can tend to the wounded.

By the end of the 90-minute course, I asked 9-year-old Samire DePriest if he could show me how to put on a tourniquet — something he had never done before this class.

In 20 seconds, he successfully applied the device to my upper arm- explaining each step of the process along the way. He even showed me how to use an ACE bandage to slow bleeding should the tourniquet fail. It was impressive, but also a telling sign of the times we are in today.