Kids Will Learn How to Save Lives

Program links firefighters, schoolchildren

Daily Gazette, The (Schenectady, NY), September 29, 2006

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Author: BY KATHLEEN MOORE - Gazette Reporter

Edition: Schenectady/Albany; Final
Section: B: Local
Page: B2

Article Text:

In a medical emergency, it's the minutes before trained personnel arrive that really count. So the Schenectady Fire Department, which responds to medical emergencies in the city, is joining a national initiative to turn every citizen into a life-saver.

The goal is to train all residents in three skills: performing CPR and the Heimlich maneuver and using an automatic external defibrillator to jumpstart a patient's heart.

Of those, the most critical is CPR.

"Every minute counts here," said Deputy Chief Kurt Gerfin, the training officer for the department. "Every minute your heart isn't pumping, you're that much further from being reversed. When we get there, 2 to 4 minutes has already passed. The survival rate is down by then."

As Deputy Chief Michael Della Rocco put it: "Bystander CPR is what really saves lives."

But few bystanders know what to do. "

In 16 years, I never had someone doing CPR on! my arrival, unless I was called to a nursing home," Gerfin said.

KIDS TO LEARN

Firefighters will try to improve that record by going to city schools to teach children in kindergarten through 12th grade, in line with the national Save-A-Life Foundation program.

The idea is not just that a child might need to use life-saving skills. They would also become more comfortable with the training, making it more likely for them to become certified as adults or at least remember the basics in an emergency, Gerfin said.

Classes have not yet been organized. City officials just made the decision to join the foundation this month, which is Save-A-Life Month. The Save-A-Life Foundation was created by Carol Spizzirri of Illinois, whose daughter Christina died as the result of a hit-and-run accident on Labor Day, 1992.

The 18-year-old bled to death from an arm injury while first responders waited for someone with first aid training to arrive.

Once the legislation passed, Spizzirri's foundation n! ow focuses on training citizens in hopes of eventually ensuring that every bystander can perform life-saving skills in the critical minutes before help arrives.

Since 1995, more than 1 million children have taken the Life Sustaining First Aid program.

HEART ATTACK SURVIVAL

* No CPR or defibrillation within 10 minutes: 0-1 percent survive

* CPR but no defibrillation in the first 8 minutes: 4 percent survive

* CPR and defibrillation within 8 minutes: 20 percent survive

* CPR and defibrillation within 4 minutes: 43 percent survive

Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 or moore@dailygazette.com