LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Louisville continues on a pace to make 2021 the most-violent year on record. So far, there have been 156 homicides and 483 total shootings.
But if you or someone you know gets shot, would you know how to help save their life? Some of the youngest people in Louisville are learning those skills.
Christopher 2X, Executive Director of Game Changers, partnered his Future Healers program with University of Louisville medical students and trauma surgeons to learn how to stop the bleed in a city filled with too many shootings. They're training kids as young as 4-13 years old.
"As much gunplay as is going on in metro Louisville the kids ... they totally understand it," 2X said. "They need to have that knowledge. It's very sad, but it's real."
Christopher 2X, Executive Director of Game Changers, partnered his Future Healers program with University of Louisville medical students and trauma surgeons to learn how to stop the bleed in a city filled with too many shootings.
Brendan Montgomery, a first responder, teaches a gun shot trauma class at Openrange Gun Range in LaGrange. He said the kids are learning something that everyone could benefit from.
"If you use your firearm in a self-defense situation, you need to know how to do the next step," he said.
Montgomery teaches people how to use a tourniquet and packing and wrapping a wound. Even if you don't have the right equipment, he said you can always use a belt or shoes laces in place of a tourniquet. And you can use a T-shirt and apply pressure on the wound itself.
Brendan Montgomery, a first responder, teaches a gun shot trauma class at Openrange Gun Range in LaGrange.
"A lot of these injuries are highly-preventable from a fatality standpoint," Montgomery said. "If I can keep the blood in ... I can keep you alive."
Montgomery expects this type of training to eventually be taught alongside CPR training. But is this all too much for children?
2x said no.
"We can't sugar-coat this stuff no more," he said. "And so we'd rather train them into something that's good ... to help people alongside the negativity where they can feel empowered to say, 'OK, it's negative, but I'm doing something good and I feel good about doing it..'"
If you would like you child to be part of the Future Healers program, click here.
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