It’s now a month since we announced that Crowdguard has partnered with RAPAID Emergency Bandages, the charity that aims to make emergency bandages available at events and in public places to help improve survival rates following injuries.

Collaboration lies at the heart of our approach to keeping people and places safer. We are particularly proud of our partnership with RAPAID because it means that we’re joining the dots between protecting people from terrorist attacks, and helping to reduce the impact should injuries occur- whether due to a terror attack or any other incident.

RAPAID’s quest to #stopthebleed is inspiring. It takes just three to five minutes to bleed out from a catastrophic injury and an emergency bandage can dramatically improve the chances of survival by stopping the bleed long enough for the emergency services to arrive. That’s why we decided to commit to deploying RAPAID emergency bandage kits with every stewarded temporary HVM deployment, and we have trained our operatives in how to use this important piece of kit.

In truth, however, RAPAID emergency bandage kits have been designed so that anyone can use them. We know from witness testimony from the Manchester Arena Inquiry that many people on the scene tried to help but did not have the equipment needed to save people who perished in those first critical minutes after the attack. The RAPAID kits not only contain simple instructions with easy to understand pictures, along with surgical gloves, but the military grade bandages are designed for intuitive use, without any specialist skills or additional equipment.

Here’s how to save a life using a RAPAID emergency bandage in just five simple steps:

1.      Put on the surgical gloves and open the bandage

2.      Place the antiseptic pad onto the wound, with the pressure applicator offset to one side

3.      Wrap the bandage once around the limb or torso then twist it and pass it through the pressure ring

4.      Pull the bandage tight to apply pressure and begin wrapping the wound in the opposite direction, covering the  pressure ring

5.      Keep wrapping until the full length of the bandage has been used and secure the closure bar in the folds of the fabric bandage

Of course, an emergency bandage is no substitute for calling blue light services, but it buys valuable minutes until the first responders arrive.

And we’re not just protecting people by deploying the RAPAID kits with our temporary HVM installations; we’re also spreading the word about the benefits of this life-saving equipment, helping to further RAPAID’s ambition of making the kits ‘easy to find and simple to use’. One of our other partners, Safecrowds Ltd has already decided to follow suit and deploy RAPAID kits with their operatives, and RAPAID is actively looking for more partners to make emergency bandage kits a routine part of events and commonplace in public places.

It’s just one of the low cost ways that event organisers and venues can make a big difference to their resilience to a terror attack. At Crowdguard our approach to protecting people and places is to assess threat and vulnerability so that we can advise on proportionate measures, aligned to the identified risk, operational requirements and budget. That doesn’t always mean recommending HVM equipment; sometimes it might be as simple as carrying out a risk assessment and ensuring teams are properly briefed and have undertaken ACT (Action Counters Terrorism) training, which is available for free from ProtectUK.

As we wait for Martyn’s Law to become legislation, debate continues about how affordable the mandatory measures will be, particularly for smaller (standard duty) venues. But the campaign for legislation does not aim to force venues to dedicate budget to measures that tick a box for counter terrorism – it’s about encouraging event organisers and venues to understand the need to identify and mitigate risk. Training, along with resources, such as emergency bandage kits, are such vital elements of preparedness and they can be implemented at minimal cost, while delivering enormous value.