Hollywood Actors Come Together for Ukrainian ‘Stop the Bleed’ PSA

A new “Stop the Bleed” public service announcement for Ukraine uses familiar Hollywood faces from popular medical dramas to show Ukrainian people simple techniques to help stop life-threatening bleeding, so they can save a life if trained personnel aren’t able to arrive soon enough.

Actors involved include Sophia Bush (CBS’ “Good Sam”) and Ryan Eggold (NBC Universal’s “New Amsterdam”) as well as costars Alejandro Hernandez, Conner Marx, Freema Agyeman, Janet Montgomery, Jocko Sims and Sandra Mae Frank.

Both medical dramas are well known in the Ukraine. “Good Sam” showrunner Katie Wech and “New Amsterdam” showrunner David Schulner were pivotal with contributing their shows’ time and talents.

Many Ukrainians still have access to the internet, so the goal of the PSA is to spread virally worldwide to reach as many civilians as possible. The PSA depicts for people with no medical training how to use simple skills to stop potentially deadly bleeding.

Maniac Productions founder Michael Seitzman (“North Country,” “Quantico”) wrote the script with input from physicians from The American College of Surgeons, the American Red Cross, the Uniformed Services University’s National Center for Disaster Medicine & Public Health, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Mass General Brigham. A Ukrainian surgeon from Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Mass General Brigham translated the script into Ukrainian for the subtitles. The PSA also includes the Department of Defense Stop the Bleed logo, with their permission.

Multiple medical organizations are supporting the PSA, including the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry, American College of Emergency Physicians, American Heart Association, Trauma Center Association of America, Children’s Hospital Association, Stop the Bleed Coalition and Stop the Bleed Education Consortium. 

Stop the Bleed originated as a campaign to provide bystanders of emergencies the tools and knowledge to stop life-threatening bleeding. The White House launched the program on October 6, 2015.

Seitzman became involved with Stop the Bleed in 2016 while working on the CBS medical drama “Code Black.” They worked together on a Code Black Stop the Bleed PSA in 2016 (which reached approximately 5.6 million people), and fellow collaborator Dr. Richard Hunt reached out to Seitzman for this PSA.

The PSA can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M680vCcsLw

For more information visit www.stopthebleed.org