(BIVN) – Donated tourniquets are keeping people alive on Hawaiʻi island. 

The Hawai‘i Police Department says 20 Big Island residents have been saved since the year 2020 thanks to the tourniquets, which were donated by the Spirit of Blue Foundation. 

Spirit of Blue Foundation executive director Ryan Smith visited the Hawai‘i Police Department headquarters in Hilo on Thursday, where he presented an oversized check from the national organization totaling $38,188.16. The amount symbolizes the donation value of “492 tourniquets, their holsters, and a new defensive tactics training suit that the Foundation has provided to HPD since 2020,” the department says. 

From left to right: Cliff Victorine, executive assistant to Mayor Kimo Alameda, Ryan Smith of Spirit of Blue Foundation, Chief Benjamin Moszkowicz, Police Chaplain Renee Godoy. (Hawaiʻi Police Department photo)

“We are extremely grateful to Spirit of Blue for providing this critical life-saving equipment to Hawai‘i Police Department,” said Police Chief Benjamin Moszkowicz in a news release. “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 and every officer in Hawai‘i Police Department”.

From the police news release:

A dozen of the officers who have saved lives using tourniquets attended the check presentation ceremony, as did volunteer Police Chaplain Renee Godoy who helped facilitate the grant from Spirit of Blue Foundation.

Two critical incidents in 2018 and 2019 highlighted the need for tourniquets for the department. In 2018, then-Officer Kevin Brodie was a member of HPD’s Special Response Team and the task force activated to find the suspect who murdered Officer Bronson Kaliloa. During a July 20, 2019, shootout with the suspect, Officer Brodie, now a Lieutenant, applied a tourniquet to then-Sergeant Bryan Tina who had been wounded by the suspect.

The following year on November 10, 2019, multiple officers responded to a fatal head-on traffic collision on Queen Ka‘ahumanu Highway in North Kona. Officer Patrick Robinson used his personal tourniquet to stop the bleeding of one of the severely injured juvenile females, saving her life.

Realizing a need in the community for life-saving equipment, volunteer Hawai‘i Police Chaplain Renee Godoy applied on behalf of HPD for a Spirit of Blue Foundation grant in 2020 to obtain 442 tourniquets and holsters for the department, with an estimated value of $31,000.

Hawai‘i Police Department was one of only 35 agencies nationwide to receive the Spirit of Blue grant in July 2020. The Spirit of Blue Foundation also replaces any tourniquet they have supplied with a new one if it is used in a documented life-saving situation.

As soon as the department received the tourniquets in late August 2020, members of HPD’s Training Section, including then-Sergeant Ryan Pagan and Officer Wayne Kenison traveled around the island before and after their shifts, conducting training on how to use the tourniquets to personnel in every district on island. Within days of starting to provide tourniquet training to his fellow officers, Sergeant Pagan, who is now a Lieutenant, used a tourniquet to save the life of a stabbing victim in Puna on September 4, 2020.

Since the implementation of the tourniquet program in 2020, there have been 20 lives saved by Hawai‘i Police Department officers using tourniquets in various cases, ranging from animal attacks to assaults. In 2024, Spirit of Blue donated 50 additional tourniquets to outfit newly-trained officers. Below is list of some of the lives saved.

(Hawaiʻi Police Department table)

“Spirit of Blue has granted nearly 8,000 tourniquets since we added them to our grant program in 2014,” stated Ryan Smith, Spirit of Blue’s executive director. “No other agency has had more saves, nationwide, with tourniquets we granted than the Hawai‘i Police Department. We never could have known the impact these tools would have made on the island, all thanks to the training and quick thinking of officers who rose to the occasion to help someone else desperately in need.”

Based in Portland, Oregon, Spirit of Blue provides grants for safety equipment to law enforcement agencies in all 50 states. To learn more about Spirit of Blue Foundation, go to (spiritofblue.org).