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How first responders are training for the next mass shooting

They're using new tactics to increase the odds for survival for victims who've been shot with AR-15s and other military-style assault rifles.

First responders are changing the way they respond to mass shooting events in hopes of increasing the odds of survival for victims of AR-15 or military-style assault rifles.

The new protocols are called the Hartford Consensus, which borrow from war zone training to teach first responders how to pack wounds and apply tourniquets, with a focus on stopping massive bleeding quickly. Law enforcement, firefighters, EMS, and even school nurses are taking the course.

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“We’re saving lives by starting CPR earlier and getting the public involved. It’s the same thing with bleeding control,” Officer Brian Wallace, who leads the course, told VICE News. Both he and Dr. Lenworth Jacobs want to see the training reach everyday civilians, and for the practices to become common life skills.

The program has its roots at Connecticut's Hartford Hospital, which was put on alert to receive victims of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in December 2012. But no patients arrived.

As the trauma surgeon on standby, Dr. Jacobs felt compelled to make a change.

“I sit on the board of the American College of Surgeons and we met two weeks later and said we’ll do something: establish a committee to increase survival from active-shooter and intentional mass-casualty events,” Dr. Jacobs told VICE News.

Three weeks after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, School Resource Officer Tina Roy attended a half-day training on tactical medicine at the Center for Education, Simulation and Innovation at Hartford Hospital. As the lone law enforcement officer at South Windsor Middle School, she says she could use the practice.

“I take it very, very personally that this is a child that I'm going to protect with everything I have and I'm going to get them back to their parent,” Officer Roy told VICE News.

This segment originally aired March 7, 2018 on VICE News Tonight on HBO.