In a first for Major League Baseball, the Chicago Cubs have taken an important step to keep fans, staff, and players safe in case a bleeding emergency occurs by installing trauma kits at Wrigley Field. During the offseason, the Cubs worked with the City of Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC), as part of their Safe Chicago initiative, to install American College of Surgeons STOP THE BLEED® kits around Wrigley Field and train ballpark staff and Cubs associates on how to respond if someone is bleeding from an injury. A person can bleed to death in as little as five minutes, and it is estimated that 57 percent of civilian deaths from blood loss could have been prevented if proper bleeding control techniques were applied.* The Wrigley Field staff and Cubs associates who have been trained to STOP THE BLEED® learned the three basic techniques of bleeding control: apply direct pressure, pack the wound, or apply a tourniquet. STOP THE BLEED® was launched in October 2015 by the White House, with a call to action to begin training more people to become immediate responders during a bleeding emergency until professional help arrives. The ACS STOP THE BLEED® program is operated under a licensing agreement granted by the Department of Defense.  More information is available at Chicago.gov/OEMC, and the STOP THE BLEED® website has details on how to get trained.

* Lei R, Swartz MD, Harvin JA, et al. Stop the Bleed Training empowers learners to act to prevent unnecessary hemorrhagic death. Am J Surg. 2019 Feb;217(2):368-372.