Our Mission

Kids need a fighting chance.

Too many kids die in school shootings. These deaths are unacceptable. And we founded Golden Hour Rescue – a 501(c)(3) charitable organization – because we’re not going to accept them.

Like everyone else, we want school shootings to stop altogether. We fully support addressing the root causes and developing effective prevention methods to put an end to these mass-casualty events and keep them from happening in the first place. But until that happens, we want schools to have a backup plan:

Active Shooter Drills and emergency protocol training for teachers, staff, and students must be expanded to include simple and proven first-aid treatment for gun-shot wounds.

Emergency room physicians, paramedics, and military personnel know that while some gun-shot wounds are immediately fatal, other victims die due to blood loss or an inability to breath while waiting for first responders to arrive. Crucially, if a bystander or even the victim themself were able to apply trauma-specific first-aid, the victim may survive long enough to later receive the professional medical treatment needed.

Just as teachers learn CPR and the Heimlich maneuver as immediate emergency interventions to help prevent death due to lack of oxygen before first responders arrive, teachers and staff must be equipped with the ‘CPR equivalent’ for immediate gun-shot wound care which involves stopping or slowing the bleeding. Lack of oxygen is widely accepted as a medical emergency that requires immediate intervention from bystanders. Our hope is that it becomes just as widely understood that blood loss also requires this same level of urgency to provide immediate first-aid intervention while waiting for first responders.

Currently, teacher and staff training on school shooting preparedness and school shooter drills at schools focus on barricading doors, turning off lights, hiding under tables, and ultimately waiting for authorities and first responders to arrive. These are important emergency protocols to hopefully secure classrooms from coming in contact with an active shooter. However, we’ve talked to a number of teachers who report that there is no training for what to do if the teacher or student is actually shot—other than to wait for first responders. There is no training in emergency first-aid for gun-shot wounds or education about the danger of blood loss and the importance of immediate intervention if they themselves or their students are shot. Unfortunately, waiting for first responders has resulted in students, teachers and staff unnecessarily dying. We can help stop many of these deaths.

During the last 20 years, there have been incredible advancements in trauma medicine. These advancements resulted in the Individual First Aid Kit or “IFAK” which is now standard-issue across the US Military. Consisting primarily of chest seals, tourniquet, gauze, and a dressing, the IFAK is easy to use and even to self-administer. That’s the breakthrough.

The Golden Hour, originally thought to mean that trauma victims need to be in surgery within an hour, has been redefined. Now, with the lessons learned from the military, it’s understood that with the right first aid, victims can survive that first and most vulnerable hour until they can receive the critical care that’s required. And with so many school shootings committed using military grade weapons, we decided it’s time to bring the same military-grade solution to the problem.

With your help, we’ll put one in every classroom in America.

—
Russell Ketchum
Executive Director, Founder