INDIANAPOLIS — IMPD officers will soon be equipped with a new tool that they believe will help save lives.
Every IMPD officer is equipped with a trauma kit. Inside them are items like medical shears, latex gloves, bandages and tourniquets. Soon, they will have chest seals.
"Tourniquets are one of the major steps, along with naloxone, that officers carry, but the chest seal is what's going to take it to truly the next level," said Dr. Dan O'Donnell, chief of Indianapolis EMS.
It's called a chest seal, and officers will use them to help people who have been shot or stabbed in the chest.
"Every year, approximately 600 to 700 people are shot in our community ... as well as numerous other stabbings," IMPD Acting Chief Chris Bailey said. "The difference between a homicide and a nonfatal shooting is access to care."
When police are responding to violent crime, every second counts.
"They're very limited right now in what they are able to do and the intervention that they're able to perform," O'Donnell said. "These chest seals will give an officer another tool in their toolbox to be able to address the issue."
O'Donnell said it works like a big Band-Aid. Officers put the chest seal over the wound, and it creates an airtight seal over the injury. It allows the person to breathe better until medics arrive to take over.
"It's a simple way of putting a dressing over them that is allowing these individuals to take a better breath and get oxygen ... which we all know is needed to survive," O'Donnell said.
Central Indiana Police Foundation executive director Lisa Rollings donated 2,000 chest seals to the department. Each package comes with two seals, which are good to use for about five years. In total, the chest seals cost about $24,000.
IMPD officers will be trained on how to use them, and the department will continue to provide the chest seals to officers as needed.
CIPF is raising money to provide chest seals to other law enforcement agencies. Anyone interested in donating to the cause can find more information here.