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Emergency services provide life-saving CPR training to public

February 21, 2019   ·   0 Comments

Written By BRIAN LOCKHART

It is a skill you learn that you hope you may never have to use, however if the need arises, knowing how to perform CPR may save the life of someone you know.

The County of Dufferin offered the first of its Free Family CPR sessions at the Mel Lloyd Centre in Shelburne on Tuesday, February 19.

There was a very positive response from the community with around 35 families signing up to take the course.

Training was provided by Dufferin County Emergency Management, Dufferin County Paramedic Service, the Shelburne Fire Department, and St. John Ambulance.

“Tonight is community education for our public access defibrillator and CPR training,” explained Dufferin County Paramedic Service chief, Tom Reid. “Those (defibrillator) are the units that are in all the public buildings, in schools, government buildings, and there’s a lot of private business that have them as well. They’re very intuitive – they tell you what to do. Some of them speak to you, some have flashing light on what to do next. And they can’t hurt anybody. It’s fully automatic – people shouldn’t be afraid to use one.”

Since these units have been in Dufferin county, Mr. Reid said they know of nine times the defibrillator units have saved a life. He cited a recent case of a man who had cardiac arrest in Orangeville and was saved after a person retrieved the unit from the library and the man was stabilized and transported to hospital and made a full recovery.

“Tonight is a family-based demonstration. It’s education for CPR and choking prevention and also how to use a public access defibrillator. We’re having all ages, there’s no limit on ages. We’re teaching everyone who comes, whether they’re younger or older, they can all learn CPR,” Mr. Reid said.

Training dummies represented both adults and infants and visitors learned how to properly do CPR on both a grown person and a small baby.

As part of the training, he said they teach people to not be afraid of using the technique when needed.

“Some people are really afraid to do anything,” 

Mr. Reid said of a typical reaction by some people in an emergency situation, but added “If they’re not breathing, they’re unconscious, and vital signs absent – they’re not going to get any worse – if you’re in doubt, start CPR. We’re trying to bridge that moment between the time something happens and when emergency services can get there.”

Performing CPR in the few minutes before emergency service personnel arrive could save the life of a person.

Visitors arriving at the training were very enthusiastic with many younger people attending to learn the techniques that could help them save a family members life in the future.



         

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