A life in exchange for a broken rib or two is probably a fair trade.
That’s the message Superior North EMS deputy chief Wayne Gates is offering prior to a free CPR course, which will run this weekend for the public.
“We call it the chain of survival. For every minute and second that goes by without CPR that person’s survival really decreases,” Gates said Tuesday at the Superior North EMS headquarters.
“We encourage any member of the public to learn CPR and this hands free CPR technique which is very easy to learn.”
Current River Coun. Andrew Foulds is well-versed in CPR training, and cautioned that the potentially life-saving exercise won’t do more harm than standing as an idle bystander.
“You can’t get deader than dead,” Foulds said. “A lot of people are scared they’re going to injure the person but if you have a cardiac arrest, you’re dead. Doing something is going to help.”
Gates said paramedics respond to an average of 120 cardiac arrest calls a year, but says survival rates are not where they should be.
“We have maybe eight to 10 people survive a year, but if we have people doing CPR prior to our arrival we can get up to 20 or 25 people surviving a year,” he said.
Statistics from the Heart and Stroke Association detail that out of hospital cardiac arrests result in a survival rate of only about five per cent.
The course will stress a more simple form of CPR that only involves rapid chest compressions to try to pump blood throughout the body until paramedics can arrive.
This is a less invasive, and easier to learn, technique than the traditional method that involved mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
“Often people are afraid to intervene because of what’s going on, but studies have shown that just by getting on the chest and doing simple chest compressions alone will increase their survival,” Gates said.
Foulds, a former lifeguard, is motivated by an event at Pearson International Airport in his teenage years when he saw an elderly woman collapse and calls for CPR went unanswered for nearly 10 minutes.
“I decided at that moment I never wanted to be that person that stood by,” Foulds said. “I remember that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.”
This will be the third in a series of workshops being conducted. The first two sessions attracted more than 300 people.
The workshop will be held at Westmount Public School on Saturday from 10:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. free of charge to anybody who shows up, with the first 100 receiving a kit that includes an inflatable practice torso and instructional video.
