Portsmouth doorman has seen it all in his 25 years from horror stabbings to glassings - and is now bidding to save lives with trauma kit launch

The response of the often-maligned security staff has helped save people from possible death. But with injured victims who are losing blood being vulnerable to dying within three to five minutes and the response times of ambulances being 10 minutes, there is still a potentially dangerous gap in time between incident and response.

To fill the void, Phil, who runs security firm Forseti Training, is rolling out trauma kits and training to venues across the city for staff to treat victims and ensure the worst case scenario does not happen.

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Phil, 45, speaking of the project backed by Portsmouth City Council which has already paid for six of the kits for venues, said: ‘I have previously worked within the night-time economy for over 25 years and have unfortunately witnessed some truly horrible scenes.

‘My goal is to help the community which I have been a part of for so long but also provide a service to help make our cities and venues a safer place to be. Knife crime in the UK has doubled between 2011 and 2019 and continues to climb at an alarming rate. Although most late-night venues have now moved towards plastics over glass containers, the level of major trauma seen within the night-time economy has not diminished.

‘The current strain placed on our emergency services to provide critical response and aid to people in need is at an all-time high. Add in the recent pandemic and our systems are verging on collapse. In the case of major trauma, like a stabbing or severe laceration, you can bleed out within three to five minutes. The current response time for an ambulance to attend a call out is 10 minutes. This leaves a large gap between incident and response, one that has to be filled by the front-line services such as workplace first-aiders and security personnel.’

But, as it stands, most security staff are not trained to the required standard - meaning they would currently ‘not know what to do’ if someone was ‘bleeding out’. Phil says tragic events like the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017 where 23 people were killed and over 1,000 injured - many of whom were children - has shown the need for trained first aiders with trauma care skills and equipment.

The reviews from this incident have led to a change in policy regarding security personnel and the required first aid training as part of the pending Martyn’s Law. The government has said that public venues with a capacity of more than 100 people will need to undertake activities to improve protective security along with staff training. ‘This policy shift is going to be huge and affect so many places...just imagine anywhere where more than 100 people can gather is a lot of places and businesses,’ Phil said.

The Trauma Bleed Kit allows staff to deal with up to four mild/moderate/severe bleeds. A pack contains one windlass tourniquet, four wound-clot patches, two trauma dressings, one thermal blanket, one set of shears, a single biohazard waste bag, one face-shield and two pairs of gloves. The kits come in a heat-sealed pouch with a four-year life after which the wound-clot dressing and trauma dressings need to be replaced. Remote or in-person learning is offered by Forseti Training to venues. ‘I feel passionate about my new business and the good I could do with it,’ Phil said.

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It is a sentiment shared by councillors ahead of a launch presentation at The Astoria club in Guildhall Walk on Tuesday. Councillor Steve Pitt, culture, leisure and economic development boss at the council, said: ‘I'm pleased we are supporting such a worthwhile scheme and the response from venues has been positive. It's important we work alongside businesses to help residents feel safe and secure.’

Councillor Jason Fazackarley, safety in the community leader at the council, added: ‘The impacts of knife crime are severe and anything we can do to lessen the impacts and reduce the risk of serious harm is valuable.’

Such violence has led to Phil and other doormen developing a ‘macabre sense of humour’ over the years in a bid to make sense of the horrors witnessed. Pinpointing some of his worst experiences, he said: ‘One night we had a particularly nasty glassing. One of the gentlemen involved was cut on his head but was struggling against us.

‘As we were trying to move him down the stairs you could see the blood spurting out of his head and hitting walls up to 15ft away. He ended up passing out and we managed to stop the bleed. I was informed he spent five days in hospital due to the blood loss.’

On another occasion an 18th birthday party turned sour. ‘There was a comment made and the birthday boy hit his best mate over the head with a glass. We ended up performing first aid which I was lucky to have as it wasn't required at the time. I had to clamp his head so we could try and control the bleed from his face. As he passed out and his head relaxed, I let go and his face shifted to one side. Then I saw he had been slashed from his upper ear to his lower jaw,’ Phil said.

Recounting a third incident, Phil said: ‘It was a quiet night then we suddenly heard a girl scream and ran over to find her boyfriend had been stabbed multiple times. He survived but the man who stabbed him had run off before he was eventually caught. That was my first experience of knife crime.’

Speaking of the challenges of ‘being on the door’, Phil said: ‘The job we do is unique in the fact we do seem to be vilified from all angles. We get involved (in incidents) then we are thugs. If we don't get involved we are weak. If we refuse entry we are racists, sexists or jobsworths. Whatever we do it is never right and we are never thanked unless it is by people in the industry.

‘We are human. I would ask anyone how much abuse they are willing to take before they would verbally retaliate. Sometimes I have stood there for over 30 minutes having people verbally abuse me and make threats against my family and me. We all have our limits.

‘I personally have had to deal with people that have been spiked, glassed, stabbed, have taken drug overdoses, are verging on psychosis due to certain drug use, and have been physically and sexually assaulted.

‘We know that in today's society probably around 30 to 40 per cent of certain demographics will be carrying some kind of bladed article, and when things turn physical, some pull it out for “protection”. But if you carry it there is intent to use it no matter what the reason.

‘Drug use has spiked within our society to extreme levels. Indeed in many of the incidents we deal with, drugs play a role in the behaviours of the people, and it is never positive. We do this job, we know all this, yet we continue to put ourselves in the way and deal with all these facts. I have had friends put in hospital, I myself have taken a couple of trips after being eye gouged and suffering concussion from incidents within security roles.

‘I have spent whole days not getting out of bed because of what I have witnessed the night before...we suffer in silence, we don't really talk, and actually in the end most doormen that have been doing the job for more than a few years develop a very macabre sense of humour about the stuff we deal with as our way of processing it.’

And this is all despite a meagre £2.50 pay rise in nearly 30 years. Yet Phil’s determination to help others and his sense of community-spirit and responsibility is what drives him on. ‘I started Forseti Training LTD so I could have a job that I enjoyed doing and give something back. Knowing that by teaching others, whether it is first aid or the trauma kit training, that somewhere that knowledge is going to save a life is everything. That's the ethos behind our kits.

‘Just look at the news headlines today, it’s knife attacks and trauma events. Trauma is the biggest killer of under 40s in this country...and our kits can help to change that. They can keep people alive until our amazing emergency services can arrive, and that is why I am so passionate about getting as much training and as many of these kits out there as I can.’

For trauma kits and/or training go to www.forsetitraining.com or contact [email protected]