Stop The Bleed: Two UPMC Police Officers Rely On Critical Training To Help Save A Woman's Life

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Thanks to two UPMC police officers, a woman's life was saved.

But for Anthony Costa and Matthew Lisovich, it was just another day on the job.

"Everybody's here to experience us and we're here to help," said UPMC Police Officer, Anthony Costa.

"That's what UPMC helped teach me to do, and we did it," said UPMC Police Officer Matthew Lisovich.

The two are UPMC police officers are Magee-Women's Hospital.

They say each day, it's always something different, and that certainly was the case recently.

It was around 6:00 in the evening when the two officers were standing in the Visitors section, fairly close to one another, when a woman walked through the front door of the hospital holding her arm.

That's when they knew something was wrong.

"I could tell by the spurting and color of blood that it was an arterial bleed," said Officer Lisovich.

The pair rushed to the woman, who they say stayed calm the entire time.

While Officer Lisovich held her arm, Officer Costa grabbed a tourniquet strapped to his waist.

For both, it was the first time they've had to use the life-saving device.

They credit their training for their quick actions.

"When Sandy Hook occurred, we realized, the system realized, that those lives could've been saved, some of those lives could've been saved if there was an immediate application of tourniquets," said John Innocenti, President of UPMC Presbyterian in Shadyside & Mercy

John Innocenti with UPMC says that's what started their "Stop the Bleed" campaign.

It's hospital-funded and has provided training and tourniquets to schools and hundreds of officers.

And in this case — it paid off.

"Some of these instances, a patient can bleed out in five minutes. So they couldn't wait for anyone else, so they did what they were trained to do," said Innocenti.

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