Today was the last day of our intense Winter hands only teaching program in Louisville, KY. Three weeks ago, seven students from DePauw University moved to Louisville to become hands only CPR instructors. These students came from all over the world to live here and benefit our community. We had interns from Brazil, New York City, Chicago, Kansas and Indiana.
When they arrived they did not really know each other. They came together as a group and became outstanding hands only CPR instructors. With the help of Janice Morgan, lead CPR instructor for LMEMS, they first became certified in traditional CPR. The interns then learned about and practiced teaching hands only CPR. On January 6th they went out into the Louisville community and began teaching hands only CPR. Since that time they have taught over 90 hands only CPR classes in 27 local area high schools. In addition, they taught in churches and our monthly class at Louisville Cardiology office. We taught over 3200 people hands only CPR in 12 days of full time teaching. As a first for the foundation, we expanded our teaching efforts into Indiana and taught freshmen high school students in 5 different counties in the Louisville region. It has been a busy and fruitful 3 weeks.
Louisville has a pitifully low bystander CPR rate of 16% last year. The number one reason for people not to perform CPR is a lack of education of what to do. It is hard to prove that the tremendous effort that these instructors just performed will make an immediate impact but it will make an impact in the future. Our foundation is dedicated to improving the cardiac arrest situation in Louisville. With first class interns like we just had, I have no doubt we will see an improvement in the future.
Thank you to our interns for their hard work and improving our community.
Special thanks to Sally who cooked, cleaned, fed and organized the logistics of the month.