Escambia County students get hands-on CPR training to boost emergency preparedness
WEAR TV | By Sarah Gail | October 4, 2023
ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — CPR training has been a requirement for Florida students to graduate. But they were never required to take part in hands on training.
That’s not stopping local organizations who feel it’s important.
He says only one student knew CPR and was able to save her life.
“The more people are aware about CPR — and that goes from students to coaches to all community and personnel — is super helpful because you never know when it’s gonna happen,” Pediatric Cardiologist Alex Arevalo said.
House Bill 157 was signed in 2021. It requires students to complete one hour of CPR training — but nothing hands on is required.
Nemours Children’s Health and the American Heart Association teamed up with school officials to provide just that for Escambia County Students — starting with West Florida High School.
“Our goal is to be able to train every 11th grade student within the Escambia County Public School District,” AHA Senior Development Director Inger Berg said.
Nyking Curry is a junior at West Florida. He says the hands on training makes all the difference when it comes to learning CPR.
“When learning how to do it you’re more comfortable with doing it, so seeing what you need to do, how hard you need to press and knowing how to use an AED is very helpful,” Curry said.
He also says, it’s a lot harder than it looks.
“It’s very stressful for having to put that much pressure and having to stay consistently for 10 minutes,” Curry said. “It’s gonna be very hard but if you push through it it’s gonna be easier.”
Mannequins were brought in Wednesday for students to train with. They also got practice using automated external defibrillators — AEDs.
Charmain Sutherland is the health education specialist for Escambia County Public Schools. She was key to setting up the training and says it was everything she hoped for.
“So what a wonderful start, I mean I couldn’t have asked for more and I hope that it just expands and we do it every year,” Sutherland said.
The students will not walk away from this training being CPR certified — but any training is better than none at all.
