Tourniquets have saved 20 Hawaiʻi Island lives in the last five years

After two critical incidents in 2018 and 2019 underscored the need for tourniquets, volunteer Hawaiʻi Police Chaplain Renee Godoy secured a grant that has since saved multiple lives on Hawaiʻi Island.

Officer Kevin Brodie, a member of the police department’s Special Response Team, was part of the task force activated to find the suspect who murdered Officer Bronson Kaliloa. During a shootout on July 20, 2018, Brodie—now a lieutenant—applied a tourniquet that saved Sgt. Bryan Tina after he was wounded by the suspect.

Tourniquets, devices used to apply pressure to a limb or extremity to stop blood flow, saved a juvenile female’s life in a fatal head-on traffic collision. Officer Patrick Robinson used his personal tourniquet to stabilize the girl when officers responded to the collision on Queen Kaʻahumanu Highway in North Kona on Nov. 10, 2019.

Through Godoy’s successful application to the Spirit of Blue Foundation, the Hawaiʻi Police Department received 442 tourniquets and holsters in 2020.

As soon as the department received the tourniquets in late August 2020, the training section traveled around the island to conduct tourniquet use training for personnel in every district. Within days of initiating the tourniquet training, Sgt. Ryan Pagan, now a lieutenant, used one to save a stabbing victim in Puna on Sept. 4, 2020.

In less than five years, officers have used tourniquets to save 20 lives on Hawaiʻi Island in cases ranging from animal attacks to assaults.

The Spirit of Blue Foundation replaces any used tourniquet in a life-saving situation with a new one and donated an additional 50 tourniquets for newly trained officers in 2024.

On Thursday, Ryan Smith, executive director of the Spirit of Blue Foundation, visited Hawaiʻi Police Department headquarters in Hilo to present an oversized check from the national organization totaling $38,188.16—symbolizing the donation value of 492 tourniquets, their holsters, and a new defensive tactics training suit that the Foundation has provided since 2020.

“Spirit of Blue has granted nearly 8,000 tourniquets since adding them to our grant program in 2014,” Smith said. “No other agency has more saves, nationwide, with tourniquets we provided than the Hawaiʻi Police Department. The impact of these tools on the island is thanks to the training and quick thinking of officers who rose to the occasion to help those in desperate need.”

Volunteer Police Chaplain Godoy and a dozen officers who have saved lives using tourniquets attended the check presentation ceremony. Below is a list of some lives saved:

“We are extremely grateful to Spirit of Blue for providing this critical life-saving equipment to the Hawaiʻi Police Department,” said Police Chief Benjamin Moszkowicz. “I’m proud to say that, thanks to Spirit of Blue’s life-saving gift, a tourniquet is now standard equipment on the duty belt of each officer in the department.”

Based in Portland, Oregon, the Spirit of Blue Foundation provides grants for safety equipment to law enforcement agencies in all 50 states.