A groundbreaking pilot study of more than 9,700 officers, aimed at determining whether it’s feasible to establish a national reporting system for police injuries, has revealed a wealth of intriguing facts about LEOs hurt on duty.
Among the highlights:
- Training exercises were second only to making an arrest as the activity most often engaged in at the time of injury, with in-service training proving especially risky;
- Some 18% of officer injuries posed a risk of “significant external hemorrhage,” putting cops in the 99 percentile of all occupations for this danger;
- Of officers injured in vehicle crashes during emergency responses, more than three-fourths had five years or less on the job;
- Across all activity categories, motorcycle crashes, while among the least common occurrences, produced the highest average of lost work days per incident (28.4);
Perhaps most important long range, according to one of the researchers involved, this preliminary study confirms that with adequate funding a nationwide reporting system for law enforcement injuries, comparable to the FBI’s ongoing LEOKA tally of felonious fatalities, could be put in place, with significant benefits for training and officer safety.
What training have you received for controlling hemorrhaging from wounds to yourself or fellow officers?
Tactical Combat Casualty Care is the current US military protocol for treating battlefield injuries. 
