The lead story in the Louisville Courier Journal today led off with a story by Darla Carter on the new law requiring CPR education for Kentucky High School students. Kentucky became the 32nd state to require this basic CPR training this year. There are now 34 states that require this training and likely all of the states will get on board shortly. It is nice to see Kentucky proactive about improving the health of our citizens.
Our organisation has been treating hands only CPR and demonstrating the proper use of an automated external defibrillator for the past 2 years. We have taught most of the freshmen high school students in 5 Kentucky counties in the last 2 years. We offer this service at no cost to the schools and usually do the education through the health and PE classes. Our instructors are often college students, nursing students and interested high school students. The program has been wildly successful and has taught over 16,000 people in the last 2 years.
Currently, we have a team of 3 college students teaching hands only CPR this summer. We are going to local businesses, community centers, churches and anywhere that people want to be educated about what to do in a cardiac arrest. We have 2 scheduled free classes, July 14 and August 11th at the office of Louisville Cardiology, in the next month that are open to the public. If you are interested in scheduling a class please contact us through our website. Remember 80% of cardiac arrests happen at home, so the person you may need to perform CPR on is likely someone that you know or love. Our classes last only take 30 minutes to complete and they are free.
Thanks to Darla Carter for her great article.