The American Heart Association hopes to teach 1,000 people CPR by training 200 Gateway Middle School students.
The idea: youngsters will insist their parents, siblings and friends learn the life-saving technique known as cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
The students come home equipped with teaching tools, including an inflatable CPR dummy, a 22-minute DVD and a resource booklet, which all fit neatly into a notebook-sized box.
The effort is driven by the American Heart Association, which reports that 75 to 80 percent of sudden cardiac arrests occur at home and the survival rate in the United States is 5 percent.
The most common use of CPR is one family member trying to save another.
Troy Smith, a Fire District 7 paramedic whose Training Solutions business gives CPR instruction, hammered that point home to the Gateway students last week.
“Remember, that’s Mom, that’s Dad, that’s brother, that’s sister,” Smith told the students as they interlocked their fingers and leaned their palms with quick thrusts on their mannequins’ chests.
Gateway student Jasmin Garnica, 12, paid close attention to her CPR instruction and planned to bring her lessons home for the Thanksgiving holiday.
“My family is really important to me,” she said
The American Heart Association plans to reach 500 students in three Snohomish County schools with the “CPR Anytime for Family and Friends” kits, which students get to keep. Arlington and Everett high schools are the other two schools.
“Not enough people are trained to do CPR,” said Francesca Fabile, an American Heart Association spokeswoman. “The more people we can train, the more we can improve the chances of survival.”
A grant from a Snohomish family made it possible. Providence Everett Medical Center, Everett Medic One Foundation and Training Solutions are distributing the kits and spearheading the training.
Gateway students, particularly boys, learned CPR was less an exercise in muscle and more one of proper technique.
“I just want to learn it because it helps people,” said Terry Tran, 12.
Rae Dorcas, 12, figured she would have more than a dozen potential CPR students on Thanksgiving, because there would be lots of her extended family in town.
“I’m going to teach as many of them as I can,” she said.
Josh Cote, 12, believes youngsters can help in the campaign to spread the benefits of CPR.
“Every little bit helps,” he said.
Eric Stevick writes for The Herald in Everett.
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