According to Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation, each year, 326,200 people in the U.S. experience EMS-assessed out-of-hospital non-traumatic SCA, and nine out of 10 victims die. Timber Creek’s Health Science Teachers are looking not only to teach the students the CPR skill, but to possibly save a life as well.
CPR, stands for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, and saves nearly 92,000 lives every year, according to the American Heart Association. Health science classes at Timber Creek practice the life-saving techniques of CPR and how to use an Automatic Electronic Defibrillator, or AED, as a part of the course. These techniques are crucial for the health career students and potential emergency bystanders. The classes’ goals are to help students going into the health profession to prepare them for when a emergency CPR situation arises.
Health science teacher, Alisha Hamilton, said, “No one knows when or where someone will go into cardiac arrest and need CPR. In a perfect world, everyone would know how to preform CPR. The sooner a victim recieves CPR, the better their chances of survival.”
Through their professional experiences, the health science teachers commented that emergencies can happen anywhere, anytime. In the Emergency Unit, students are taught how to look for a ‘safe scene’ and check the victim first, demonstrating how a real life emergency is not always the best situation. The teachers give students hypothetical places, practicing with one and two rescue teams, to showcase what they have learned to check understanding and to improve their skills.
“My oldest [child], when he was nine days old, he was choking and he turned blue, and I had to provide back blows and clear his airway when he was only nine days of age and that’s my own child,” said, Health science teacher and Registered Nurse, Ashley Hunsucker.
The health science teachers know it is important for these students to learn these skills as soon as possible. The more exposure the students have, the more comfortable they will be in an emergency. The classes are also going through the Heimlich maneuver, how to use an AED, and first aid practices.
“As health care providers, we have other people’s lives in our hands on a daily basis. It is our duty to be prepared for any situation that arises and threatens our patients or even random bystanders,” said Hamilton.
Students work through these life-saving units to help prepare them for their health careers and for those students that could potentially become emergency witnesses and maybe even an emergency rescuer.
Many people however, acknowledge that they are afraid to preform CPR or use an AED in a real life situation.
“I would ask them, ‘What would you want if you were the unresponsive victim with no heart beat?’ Always put yourself in the shoes of the victim,” said Hamilton, “You would want the person or people around you to do whatever they could to save your life. There is a Good Samaritan Law that protects people that provide care in an emergency situation. Also, know that you are not alone in your hesitancy. It’s a natural reaction to feel nervous or hesitant, but if you keep up to date and practice the CPR skills on a regular basis, you will be prepared when a situation arises. Perform the skills as you were trained to the best of your ability. Whatever the outcome, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you did the best you could.”