Trauma kits used by Portland police are saving lives, doctors say

PORTLAND, Maine — Portland police took on new responsibilities in 2022 in response to more violent crime in the city.

Officers started carrying trauma kits about a year and a half ago. They contain medical supplies, including a tourniquet and a chest seal for gunshot wounds or deep cuts to the torso.

In seven shooting incidents in 2022, 13 people were hurt. Officers used their trauma kits in every one of those shootings. Police recorded more than 42 instances of gunfire in the city in 2022, which was double from 2021.

They also used them in nonviolent situations but where someone suffered trauma, department records show.

Officer Brian Rollins, a five-year veteran of PPD and a former combat medic, said some officers purchased their own materials before the department received a grant to purchase the kits.

Those came in handy on Sept. 26, 2020, when Rollins responded to a motorcycle crash on I-295 during the Friday evening rush hour. He called the man’s injuries “life-threatening.”

"That was the first time -- real world -- this guy needs help now," Rollins said. "That level of trauma. Not knowing whether he's going to make it in the rig -- the ambulance -- to make it up to the hospital or if that's going to be the scene."

Rollins pulled out his trauma kit and applied a tourniquet.

"If I don't do anything, something bad's going to happen,” Rollins said.

Now, every officer on the streets in Portland gets one of these kits. Their yearly training with them in 2022 came just weeks before a spree of five shootings in the city in less than a week.

"It was very blatant that things were changing, and they were changing very rapidly,” Rollins said. “[These kits are] to give you the best shot to get to the hospital to get to somebody that has a lot more tools, education, and training than we do on the street."

The kits help to stop the bleeding until emergency medical crews arrive on scene and transport the victim to the hospital, where physicians take over.

Maine Medical Center emergency medicine physician Dr. Kate Zimmerman, D.O. said she noticed better outcomes for patients who got treatment on scene during a traumatic injury.

“Getting care at the point of injury is crucial,” Zimmerman said. “You want to save every drop of blood. That can be the difference in life or death in some of these patients."

Zimmerman praised the department’s use of the trauma kits at a recent awards night ceremony.

"Every person that they touch, it's improved their outcomes,” she told NEWS CENTER Maine.

Every person, including that motorcycle driver from 2020. Aaric Rowe, a 33-year-old man from South Portland, survived.

"You're blown away,” Rollins said. “That minor or seemingly minor intervention saved this person's life."