CPR Training Helps Pupils Understand What is Needed to Restart a Heart

Would you know what to do if someone is not breathing? Pupils from a leading North Yorkshire School are today learning the importance of CPR as part of a Europe wide initiative to educate people about the importance of CPR.

Cundall Manor School, near Thirsk and Ripon, joined another 120 school from across the county to take part in ‘Restart a Heart Day’ – a programme which provides pupils with life-saving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training.

Pupils as young as FIVE joined in the training which aims to teach members of the public how to help restart the heart of someone who has suffered a cardiac arrest.

Instructors from York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and The Yorkshire Ambulance Service taught nearly 340 children at the school how to perform CPR using an interactive DVD and practical instruction on inflatable manikins.

School Matron, Beverly Longthorne, helped organise the event for the school. She said: “Events like this help raise awareness and equip our pupils with a real life skill that could prevent a someone dying.”

The school benefited from the expertise of several staff from the nearby York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust being on hand to help instruct pupils as to the best way to perform the life-saving skill.

Clinical Skills Lead for the Trust, Sandra Tucker-Quinn, said: “Events like today are about making a difference from a young age. We are teaching real life skills that could save a life. Effective bystander CPR could reduce mortality rates by a significant amount.”

Across Europe around 350,000 people a year suffer a cardiac arrest outside of a medical environment, often in the home.

Bystander CPR by non-medical persons increases survival by two to three times, however, today it is delivered in only one in five out-of-hospital Cardiac Arrest cases. Estimates suggest that by increasing this rate we may save 100,000 lives in Europe per year.

CPR consists of 4 key steps:

1. Call for help
2. Check for signs of life
3. Perform mouth-to-mouth
4. Perform chest compressions

To find out more about Restart a Heart Day visit the Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust dedicated website on www.restartaheart.yas.nhs.uk/day/ The Resuscitation Council (UK) have produced an app to help people on the go learn CPR. You can download it from your app store.