(quiet music)
- This is where the shooting took place.
I had just turned 15,
so I was super young, you know what I mean?
I'm still super young, and it's ridiculous
that I've had to go through
some of the stuff I've had to go through,
but I know that this is not a game, you know?
People really die from gun violence,
every single day,
in this neighborhood.
(sirens wailing in distance)
When you're from Chicago,
you turn on the news and you see gun violence.
Somebody shot two blocks away
from where you're at right now.
- [Reporter] Deadly gun violence
is surging in Chicago once again.
- [Reporter] Two men shot at crowd during a block party.
- [Reporter] 500 homicides so far.
- But I didn't really feel the gravity
until it was in my living room.
Summer after my freshman year of high school,
a young man got shot
across the street from my apartment complex.
- It was like a typical day.
We were going to the store to get something.
Got in the car.
Got to the light.
Shots rang off.
- [Journey] I hear gunshots, and I look out my front window.
- I was shot, made it out of the vehicle,
ran through an alley,
and ran through the back of an apartment complex.
- My backdoor flies open and in runs Peda.
He's holding his neck, bleeding everywhere.
- [Peda] There was a lot going through my head,
a lot of different emotions.
- Just asking me over and over again,
can you help me, can you help me,
I've been shot, and can you help me?
Lucky for him, I was able to say yes.
- Hello, good afternoon.
Thank you all so much for having us today.
Like she said, I'm Martine.
You already know Journey.
We're with Ujimaa Medics.
We want to teach you all what to do
if you're ever in a situation
where someone is injured by being shot.
- Ujimaa Medics is a black health collective
based in Chicago
that educates and trains people on how to handle
and apply first aid to urban health crises.
- So I'm gonna say a statement.
If the statement applies to you, step up
and then back.
I live in a neighborhood where there's been a shooting.
I've heard a gunshot before.
I know someone who's been shot.
- The ultimate goal is that we want to get the wounded
to an an ambulance and into a hospital as soon as possible.
We just want to teach people
how maximize that time the most,
so that way instead of being filled with panic,
they can instead be useful to a situation
and be empowered to help somebody that they love
or even somebody that they don't even know.
In our gunshot wound first aid training,
we start off by going over our first aid principles.
- So the first one, can you all read this for me?
Understand (class joins in) how they feel--
- Then we go into the actual physical treatment
of what to do with a gunshot wound.
If you have a wound here that's bright red spraying blood
and you have a wound here that's oozing blood
and it's dark and it's gurgling,
you want to do this one first.
How to talk to the wounded,
how to treat them, how to handle them,
how to respect their bodily autonomy,
and things like that.
- You know I know first aid, right?
Can I please help you?
- [Journey] Then after that,
we talk about what to do when the ambulance gets there.
- You're gonna do the best you can
with what you know how to do
because someone else is coming
to take them to a higher level of care.
- There is a lot of gun and gang violence
that takes places in the city
but in addition to that,
there is a lack of healthcare resources in these communities
that are affected the most by gun violence.
Not only will somebody potentially have to
travel a long distance to get to a trauma center,
but they will also have to potentially wait
15, 20 minutes for an ambulance to get there.
- Damian was a young man that I worked with
and he was killed near the University of Chicago Hospital
'cause there was no level one adult trauma center
on the South Side.
He passed away in an ambulance ride
on the way to Northwestern Hospital,
which is 45 minutes across town.
This huge hole was ripped in the community
that really created this tension,
that for people we have to do something.
- [Crowd In Video] What do we want? Trauma centers!
When do we want it?
Now!
- We want a trauma center.
We want healthcare.
- And we're not gonna stop until we get it.
- So that began this longterm campaign
for the University of Chicago Hospital
to open a trauma center
and also began U Medics.
I was literally standing next to Damian's casket
at his viewing when the idea first came to me.
- I'm not gonna teach you how to do anything crazy
or out of your scope.
I'm gonna teach you how to use first aid skills
to save somebody's life.
Okay?
- [Amika] To date,
U Medics has trained probably close to 1,500
and about seven trainers have used their U Medics training
to help be first responders in a gunshot wound scenario.
- So she gets shot in the head, that takes precedence.
- We have no illusions that we are taking steps
to solve any problem of gun violence.
First aid is not a cure-all,
but it changes the way you look at life.
Teaching people how to care for their own body,
the bodies of their friends
actually impacts the apathy that people feel about life
when you're growing up in a really violent city.
- I've never been in a situation before in my life,
you know what I mean?
And you've been in that situation before.
So this was the first time that I met Peda
after he got out the hospital,
and I'm basically just explaining to him
how important it is for his family
to get trained by U Medics.
We trained his entire family, which is maybe 20 people,
ranging from literally ages 3 to 70.
After I saved Peda's life,
my role in U Medics went into overdrive
because then it just made me feel like oh my God,
everybody needs to have this training.
It kind of set a standard for my life
that was kind of like you have to show up
because look what happens when you do show up.
We don't want to be doctors.
We don't teach people how to be doctors
or how to be paramedics.
We want them to get in an ambulance
and get to the hospital as soon as possible.
But how can we keep people from dying?
How can we stop burying our brothers
and our mothers and sisters?
It's not even simply about
getting the gunshot wound training.
It's just the principle of how you're gonna carry yourself
now that you do have this information.
And then it also creates a level
of community accountability, to say, "I got you."
You're my neighbor.
Maybe we don't talk every day
and maybe we don't have anything in common,
but if you're in need, I can help you out.