The National Safety Council is promoting the first week of June as National CPR and AED Awareness week, encouraging people to learn these life-saving techniques and for those who have CPR training or AED knowledge, the campaign is urging them to get a refresher course.
Why Learn CPR?
From the NSC, here are some of the many reasons why knowing CPR is so important:
- Sudden cardiac arrest can happen to anyone at any time, regardless of age, sex or apparent level of fitness.
- Many sudden cardiac arrest victims appear healthy, with no known heart disease or risk factors associated with heart disease.
- There are almost 383,000 out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrests annually, 88 percent of which occur at home.
- More than 92 percent of people who suffer cardiac arrest outside the hospital will die from it.
- Currently, less than eight percent of people who have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survive.
- Effective bystander CPR provided immediately after sudden cardiac arrest can double or triple a victim’s chances of surviving, yet less than 1/3 of all cardiac arrest victims receive bystander CPR.
- In cities where defibrillation is provided within five to seven minutes after sudden cardiac arrest, the survival rate is as high as 49 percent.
What is an AED?
An automated external defibrillator (“AED”) is a machine that saves lives through electric shock to the heart which can return a victim of heart attack to normal rhythm.
CPR and AED Can Be the Difference Between Life and Death in Heart Attack Victims
As advocates for personal injury victims and their families, we know all too well that no one thinks that a sudden and severe injury or accident is going to happen to them. It’s always “the other guy” until it happens to you or to your husband, wife, parent, child, sister, brother, best friend.
CPR does save lives. Being training in CPR can mean the difference between life and death for someone you know, or someone hurt on the job, at the theme park, or the grocery store, place of worship, sporting event, etc.
Knowing CPR means that if you see someone who is unresponsive and is not breathing normally, or isn’t breathing at all, you can act.
In these situations, the NSC suggests:
1. Call 911
2. Get an AED
3. Push hard and fast on the center of the chest (compressions)
4. The CPR Trained person can provide 2 breaths for every 30 compressions until the AED is in place.
CPR Training is available in all sorts of places throughout Northwest Indiana and the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Why not sign up for a class during this year’s CPR Awareness Week?
