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EORH donates bleeding control kits to departments

MARTINS FERRY — East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry donated bleeding control kits to every police department in Belmont County and the sheriff’s office on Wednesday.

Kayla Shreve, marketing and physician service director at East Ohio Regional Hospital, and Brad Simms, safety director at East Ohio Regional Hospital, hand-delivered the kits to each station.

“The Belmont Monroe Health Coalition got funding from the federal government, and we decided to use the funding to get stop bleed kits for every police cruiser in Belmont County,” Shreve said.

Shreve and Simms delivered more than 100 bleeding control kits to 10 police departments and the sheriff’s office.They donated the kits to the police departments in Martins Ferry, Bridgeport, St. Clairsville, Flushing, Barnesville, Bethesda, Belmont, Bellaire, Shadyside and Powhatan Point as well as the Belmont County Sheriff’s Department.

They also brought trays of sweets to each station.

“They were really excited when they saw the sweets. We lured them in with the sweets and then showed them the stop bleed kits,” Simms said.

“We brought the goodies because we wanted to thank them for all they do,” Shreve said.

Shreve said she wanted to help police officers be more prepared when they respond to medical emergencies.

“About 75% of the police officers didn’t have anything like this before, and police are usually the first to respond in a shooting, so it’s really important that they have the supplies they need,” she said.

Shreve and Simms also made sure that the kits were ready to use and showed the officers and police chiefs how to use them.

“We wanted to make sure they took the plastic off of them and had them ready to go in case of an emergency,” Shreve said.

Shreve and Simms said the trip took a total of seven hours and 110 miles of driving.

“It was well worth it. The police officers were very excited,” Shreve said.

Simms said it used to be a common practice for hospitals to donate medical supplies to local police departments.

“It’s just not done anymore. We called each department before showing up, and the ones that did not answer or check their messages were shocked when we came in,” he said.

Shreve and Simms said they hope that East Ohio Regional Hospital can donate more supplies to local law enforcement in the future.

“It felt good, and we were well-received,” Shreve said.

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