ABOVE: Martin County Sheriff’s Office Deputy James Tietje shows Father Jeff Dobbs how to put a tourniquet on during BlueLine Tac Med’s first official training at St. John Vianney on Wednesday. The business will teach people how to react in emergency and dangerous situations through tactical medicine.

FAIRMONT – With both having over 20 years of law enforcement experience, Cory Ballard and James Tietje are sharing their experience in dealing with emergency situations with BlueLine Tac Med.

Ballard is currently a Patrol Sergeant with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office. He has 27 years of experience in law enforcement, plus 11 years of training as a SWAT operator. Martin County Deputy Tietje has the same amount of SWAT years and has been in law enforcement for 23 years.

They have done emergency trainings with schools before, such as active shooter drills, since 2010. It was through this that they first got the idea to bring this information to others.

“The knowledge we have that a lot of people want to have, they don’t,” Ballard said. “That’s our daily life is being cops, and people want to know this stuff, and we didn’t understand this. We had a lot of people that came to us and said, ‘You guys should really give this out to people.’ We discussed it more like, ‘I think it’s time to kind of spread our wings and offer this on a bigger scale.'”

To do so, Tietje said they went to a specific training to learn how to teach Tac Med.

“That’s the medical side of things,” he said. “We’re focusing on how to respond to an emergency situation, whether it’s a car accident, or if there would happen to be a shooting or somebody falls down and cuts themself badly, it can apply to so many different directions in your life.”

The training from BlueLine Tac Med will follow the MARCH acronym.

“M, which is massive hemorrhage, massive bleeding, which lead into a lot of tourniquet,” Tietje said. “A is for airway, teaching alternative airway. R is for respiration, which we look into chest seals and things like that, a sucking chest wound, attention hemothorax, as it’s called. Circulation, which is the C, and then the H is for hypothermia and head injuries.”

To teach how to deal with these situations, Ballard said it is going to be hands-on.

“We’re not giving you a death by PowerPoint,” he said. “We’re sitting down. We’re demonstrating. You’re going to apply the things we train you. We want to watch you do it. We want you to do it yourself, and we want repetition.”

Properly applying MARCH solutions can include tools like tourniquets, pressure bandages and space blankets, all of which are provided for the training. Information on where to get these items is also provided.

“We’ll provide the best places we found to acquire those items, and we’ll give them an idea of a good kit they can put together on their own,” Ballard said.

BlueLine Tac Med offers two lengths for training: a condensed one-hour and thirty-minute session and the regular three-hour session.

While this is offered privately for any group interested, BlueLine Tac Med will also be doing sessions open for everyone to register through CER and their Facebook page, starting April 18.

By bringing these skills and information to people directly, Ballard said it can help instill confidence in people to deal with dangerous situations if and when they come about.

“To know they can use these techniques and these tools we provide,” he said. “The confidence and knowledge are the two things I think people will get out of this, knowing, ‘Okay, these are things I can do if I come across something or something happens to my family.'”

So far, Ballard and Tietje have gotten positive comments on the initiative they are undertaking. Tietje said that is the most important part of BlueLine Tac Med.

“In 2010, roughly, when we started teaching in the schools, we didn’t do it because somebody asked us to,” he said. “We did it because it’s something we enjoy doing. That enjoyment has only grown over the years. We didn’t start this business as ‘We’re going to retire, and this is going to be our new job.’ We didn’t start it to make money. We do this because we love teaching this.”

For more information, including on the upcoming training open to everyone, visit facebook.com/BluelineTacMed/.