Lehighton Area School District, Lehighton Fire Company and the Lehigh Fire Company No. 1 social quarters are teaming up to increase emergency preparedness in the district’s school buildings.

Lehigh Fire Company No. 1 social quarter members in Monday presented the district with a check for $11,500 to be used for the purchase of 200 JACOB Kits to be placed throughout district buildings.

The kits include life saving items such as a tourniquet, chest seals, bandages and medical gloves.

Lehighton teachers and staff have been trained on how to use the kits to help “Stop the Bleed” while waiting for an emergency medical team to get the scene in the event of a shooting or other disaster.

“This is something we obviously hope we never need to use, but we are very thankful for the generosity of the fire company,” Lehighton Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver said. “We’re actually going to donate two of the kits back, one for the social hall and one for the fire company itself. Again, we hope the fire department never needs these either.”

The trauma kit was named after Jacob Hall, a 6-year-old student wounded in a 2016 school shooting in Townsville, South Carolina. Jacob survived the wound but died three days later due to massive blood loss.

“Victims can die in as little as three minutes from massive blood loss, and an ambulance is never going to get there that quick,” Larry Diehl, a Lehighton firefighter, said. “Any delay in treatment could cost someone their life. The district, at the time we approached them with this, was looking at several similar options and were very receptive to this.”

Tanner Eckman, a Lehighton firefighter, got the ball rolling and worked with the Lehigh Fire Company No. 1 social quarters small games of chance committee to come up with the funding.

“Our job is to prepare teachers to treat these conditions,” Eckman said. “St. Luke’s employees and Lehighton Ambulance employees have trained the staff on how to apply the tourniquet, control bleeding, package the wounds and apply pressure. In the event you need these, they will be here. We hope you don’t.”

The trauma kits are typically placed by the room’s hallway door for easy access by teachers and staff. Lehighton’s kits will be clustered throughout its elementary, middle and high schools.

Five mass casualty bags will also be provided to the district. One will be placed in each school, one in the administration building and another at the athletic stadium.