Orcutt family to donate trauma kits to SBC Sheriff’s Office

These are trauma kits, lifesaving bags that contain medical equipment needed to temporarily tend a would from major trauma such as a gunshot, stab wound, or blunt force trauma. They’re some of the 20 new kits that are going to be donated by the Kilpatricks to the Orcutt substation of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.

“I was driving around and I decided to pull over and talk to one of the deputies here and ask them about the medical kits that they have. He said essentially that the medical kits that they have are not these so I went out and started thinking how can we get these guys the proper medical kits that they need,” Ryan Kilpatrick explains.

Buying all the kits however, would cost around $3,000 so he decided to ask for help.

“We just went to places that we already go – I mean we go to the Far Western quite a bit, I work for Empire Works and then we’re members at Pacific Christian Center so that was the easiest place to start,” Kilpatrick says.

For the Far Western Tavern, it was an easy yes.

“I know it’s important to them and I know it’s important to the community. It’s important for not just the Far Western Tavern but all our local businesses to get involved with our local law enforcement and our community [because] it helps build up our community, it helps build up relationships and that’s what a community is all about,” says Shelley McKinney, Operations Manager of the Far Western Tavern.

Organizing this donation took months of planning but the Kilpatricks say it’s nothing compared to the sacrifice members of law enforcement make every day.

“They stand between us and all the people that wish to do us harm and with that kind of scope of work, it’s important that these people know they have to the support of the community,” Kilpatrick tells us.

The life saving trauma kits are going to be officially donated next week. The Kilpatricks say they are going to start raising money next to bring the same donation to the Santa Maria Police Department and hope to eventually touch all the departments on the Central Coast.