Bermuda proved its good for more than affluent vacations and hiding cash from the IRS on Thursday by passing on a life-saving idea to its “sister community” of Buckhead.
Buckhead Coalition President Sam Massell credited the British island with the idea he rolled out Thursday to save Atlanta Police officers lives: a $50 trauma pack to be carried by cops so if they are shot they can make a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.
“Two out of three police officers who die in the line of duty, do so from the loss of blood,”said Massell, a former Atlanta mayor.
The coalition, a business organization, and long time law enforcement supporters, had a leading role in creating the Atlanta Police Foundation, helped raise funds to supply surveillance cameras and contributed the “first horse to the horse force,” said Massell.
But he seemed proudest of the trauma packs which the coalition, the Midtown Alliance and Central Atlanta Progress are now raising money to supply to the 2,000 officers in the APD. Next week 90 officers in the three business districts will get the first order with others being supplied as contributions make them available, Massell said.
Maj. Vincent Moore, chief of staff at the APD, said the value of the Trauma Plate Packs — made by Officer Survival Solutions, a California firm — came from the simplicity of application by wounded officers. “They should be able to put it on in less than 20 seconds,” Moore said.
The Buckhead community cemented ties with the Atlantic island of Bermuda in 2011 when a delegation from the Buckhead Coalition traveled to there to exchange proclamations making the new sister-community ties official.
Donors can help purchase the packets — the price of a cheap business lunch for two in Buckhead — by making out a check to State Bank and Trust Company, Buckhead Tower at Lenox Square, 3399 Peachtree Road NE, suite 1900, Atlanta, Ga. 30326. Note on the check “for trauma kits.”
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