Hundreds of Belton ISD staff spend the day on Monday, not teaching, but learning life saving measures.

School was out in observance of Columbus Day, the district took advantage of that to teach about 300 faculty and staff what they can do to save a life during an emergency.

“In the world we live in now, we’ve had very bad things occur, the nation started this initiative right after the Sandy Hook school shootings, so for us in our region after we train first responders and law enforcement, schools just made the most sense,” said Christine Reeves, Executive Director of the Central Texas and Heart of Texas Regional Advisor Councils.

The training, taught educators the basics of bleeding control.

“What we want is quick response and people trained all across the campus so that we can respond quickly,” said Charlotte Smith, Director of Health Services with Belton ISD.

Because the people who are at the scene before the first responders arrive, are the immediate responders.

“Even though we still lose people, it’s less people, and so the idea would be zero, but less is better than more, absolutely,” said Reeves.

Hundreds learned skills that can mean the difference between life and death.

“Applying pressure, wound packing, and then application of a tourniquet, we’re actually going to have them apply tourniquets to themselves and each other so they know what it feels like, so when they apply it to a student or someone else, they’ll be able to tell them what it feels like,” added Reeves.

Judd Jackson is an AP Human Geography teacher as well as a Football Coach, he thinks the information they learned is very important.

“If something were to happen to one of our kids or one of our teachers or anything that we can actually be there to help save a life,” said Jackson.

Because knowing how to save a life, is priceless.

“It’s okay to be scared, but if we do a little bit of training it makes that scared a little bit easier to manage,” said Reeves.

The Stop the Bleed training program is all part of Belton ISD’s comprehensive approach to safety and security.