Teesside anti-knife crime campaigner to hand out bleed kits
Schools, colleges, pubs and clubs are being urged to have a pack on-site for emergencies
Last updated 1st May 2025
Bleed control kits are being handed out across Teesside in the hopes it is going to save someone's life in the future.
Schools, colleges, pubs and clubs are being urged to have a pack on-site in case there is ever an emergency in their community.
Theresa Cave is an anti-knife crime campaigner from Redcar. She says she will also provide the training on how to use one: "We used to make our own little mini kits years ago and they weren't strong enough. We started saving money but they were getting too expensive as each bleed kit is around £65 each and we couldn't do it, so I applied to the lottery and we were lucky enough to get it for the bleed kits so we're absolutely elated with that. They've given us £3,000 to spend on bleed kits.
"They all come in a soft bag, they're easily accessible and to grab. Inside the bleed kits is everything you need from the tourniquet right through to the bleed crystals, the celox that stop the bleeding with the pressure pads and everything else that's in there. It even comes with an instruction leafleft.
"We want to train these people how to use these bleed kits. We'll gladly give them a bleed kit after they've had the training and then they can continue, keep it on their premises in pubs, clubs, youth organisations, schools, colleges even in corner shops where there's trouble, where there's a hotspot type of thing, even if it isn't a hotspot.
"Once we know they've got something on hand and they know how to use it because please when you go to a scene of an attack that person, if it hits an artery you're looking at 80 seconds before they bleed out. If you can stop that bleed just until that ambulance arrives and let the ambulance take over then you've saved that life and it's all been worthwhile.
"These are the most robust ones you can buy and they do the job. They're going to save lives so why not have one? Hopefully they'll never have to be used, we don't mind that. We don't want them there to be used, we want them not to be used."
Theresa added that the bleed kits will be on-site rather than on a wall under a coded lock far away like defibrillators: "By the time you punch a number in, you open the door, you run back with a bleed kit then the person could've died. It's not just for stabbings I know that. They are lifesavers and they need to be put everywhere. Everyone needs to be carrying a stab pack. We've been delivering stab packs for 18 years now, our own and now these."