The first free Trauma and Injury Prevention Fair took place in San Luis Obispo on Saturday. Locals showed up ready to learn.
The Trauma and Injury Prevention Fair aims to raise awareness of traumatic injuries and offers community members resources that will help them prepare and stay safe.
“We showcase how to prevent injuries and what to do in the case of an injury,” Katelyn Malo, Injury Prevention Coordinator for Sierra Vista Trauma Department said.
Malo is a registered nurse. She says she sees a lot of the same types of injury prevention at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center.
Motor Vehicle accidents are one of the top ten.
“Educating our teenagers on how to drive safely, what distracted driving looks like, and how that affects them directly, showing them specific stories that are local to our community that do apply to them even though they might feel invincible,” Malo said.
The event is a way for locals to learn from community partners.
Stacey Ritter, owner of Concussion Navigation Services had a booth at the fair and wants to bring awareness to concussions.
“If you experience a blow to the head or body…and you have any symptoms of concussion, discontinue play right away, get evaluated by a medical professional who is trained in concussion, and then start concussion rehab as soon as you can,” Ritter said.
“I think it’s really good so that people know what goes into an emergency. All the different people who are active members of an emergency protocol are not just an ambulance or a police. there are multiple different avenues,” Maria Curtis said.
While some came to learn, others want to inform the community about what they do.
“We want people to know what kind of capabilities we have. We can do things like give things like blood transfusions or we can even do it out in the field. So if someone has any blood loss before they come to the hospital we can get that started early,” Joseph Gurthie Flight Medic for Mercy Air said.
CalStar Flight Paramedic, Dennis Rowley, says sometimes people are scared to see a helicopter landing, so he wants to raise awareness.
“It’s exciting but if you're a patient and we are coming to see you it can be kind of scary for people to see us normal and be able to teach them a little bit about the things we can do and how we help people,” Rowley said.
The main goal of the event is to educate community members to help protect one another.
“We can prevent these injuries. Here are some resources and some education. Let’s get our community safer,” Malo said.
Even staff say they will host the fair annually and next year’s event will be towards the end of the summer.
