Note: women who read save lives.
Take 12-year-old Megan Gething for example, who used a skill she recalled from the popular young adult series “The Hunger Games” to save her friend’s life. Gething and her friend Mackenzie George were playing Saturday morning in a swamp in Rockport, Massachusetts, when George cut her leg on a welded steel pump. The gash on her calf was 10 inches long and three inches wide, according to The Gloucester Times.
“Going through my mind was just helping ‘Kenzie,” Gething told the paper.
So, she took charge. Gething was able to use a pair of shorts as a tourniquet in order to stop the bleeding and instructed another friend Zoe Tallgrass to run for help. Eventually, Tallgrass returned with father and brother and George was taken to the hospital.
For those not quite as well read as these sixth-graders, Katniss Everdeen uses a tourniquet to help save her teammate Peeta Mellark at the end of the first “Hunger Games” novel. And no, that’s not something viewers would know from watching the movie ― this particular moment from the book was not included in the film.
“I figured it was a well-known method of stopping bleeding,” Gething said.
Tourniquets are notoriously complicated first-aid items, and improvised ones are even trickier. They are designed to prevent heavy blood loss but, when tied too tight, a tourniquet can actually stop circulation and risk the need for amputation. Leaving it on too long can actually cause nerve damage.
Luckily, Gething knew enough to make a difference.
“Megan was the star of the show,” George’s father told The Gloucester Times. “Thank goodness she was there. Mackenzie would have lost a lot more blood, and it could have been life-threatening if she hadn’t done what she did.”
