In recognition of the American Heart Association’s “National Heart Month” Talbot County Emergency Services will be offering free CPR and AED training to the public on February 25, 2015, at the Talbot County Community Center located at, 10028 Ocean Gateway in Easton, Maryland. The CPR classes will begin every hour on the hour beginning at 9:00 am with the last class beginning at 7:00 pm. Classes are approximately one and a half hours in length.
This year in addition to the traditional CPR classes there will also be “Hands-Only” CPR offered as well. The “Hands-Only CPR” training takes just a few minutes (5-10) to learn the most important portion of CPR, chest compressions. In fact, Hands-Only CPR has been shown to be equally as effective as conventional mouth-to-mouth CPR, and people are more likely to feel comfortable performing this type of CPR. A December 2012 study published in the American Heart Association’s Journal, Circulation found that chest compression-only CPR performed by bystanders keeps more people alive with good brain function after having a sudden cardiac arrest.
Heart disease is the nation’s No. 1 killer, claiming more lives than an all forms of cancer combined. It has been noted that cardiovascular disease is responsible for one out of every four deaths in the United States and is the leading cause of death for both men and women. A lethal complication that can develop while having a heart attack is Sudden Cardiac Arrest, which is a leading cause of death, claiming more than 300,000 lives each year. During a sudden cardiac arrest, heart function ceases – abruptly and without warning. When this occurs, the heart is no longer able to pump blood to the rest of the body, and in some 90 percent of victims, death occurs because they don’t receive immediate lifesaving CPR from someone on the scene.
Once a cardiac arrest occurs, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation is required within the first several minutes to restore electrical activity to the heart and revive the heart’s pumping function. Availability of Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) is critical for rapid response to cardiac arrest. When a teen or adult has a sudden cardiac arrest, survival depends on immediately receiving CPR from someone nearby, especially since survival rates drop as much as 10% for every minute that goes by without intervention.
It is critically important in the case of sudden cardiac arrest to access the 9-1-1 system immediately… every second counts. The data is clear, by having a community trained in high-performance CPR with access to AEDs and a highly trained and equipped EMS response system the survival rate for Sudden Cardiac Arrest improves significantly, and it is our earnest goal to train as many people as we can to save lives
Talbot County Emergency Services with the support of the Talbot County Paramedic Foundation, Talbot County Health Department, Talbot County Chamber of Commerce, Chesapeake Publishing, WCEI/WINX Radio, University of Maryland Shore Regional Health, and Talbot County Department of Parks and Recreat
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