Woman stabbed as child launches pocket bleed kits

Sherie Wilson said the pouch was an interim measure until the ambulance service arrived

A woman who was stabbed at the age of nine has helped to develop a pocket-sized bleed kit for young people.

Sherie Wilson, from Willenhall, Walsall, suffered nerve and tendon damage when she was stabbed in the hand "randomly in a street".

She said she hoped the kits could be issued to pupils in schools, with the special pouches able to be "carried by anyone and everyone", and used as an interim measure in the event of an emergency until paramedics arrived.

She said the effects of her own experience of knife crime were still felt today.

"Although I survived that attack, it's left me with obviously scars and it's left me with a lot of mental trauma, to the point [that] going outside into public places can be quite daunting, especially at night time," she explained.

"I don't cope very well in that situation still and that's 40 years on."

Ms Wilson, who works at Judd Medical Ltd, a medical equipment supplier in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, said she was thankful to the company for being willing to give her the tools she needed to get the kits "fully licensed and to market".

Sherie Wilson said she hoped the kits could be issued to pupils in schools

The Lil BleederZ product would "preserve life until the ambulance service get there to apply full trauma first aid to the casualty", she said.

Ms Wilson added that one day she would hear that the device had been used in an emergency, and while that would also mean someone had suffered, "this pouch... could ultimately... save that life".