Nearly 500 Calif. Middle School Students Learn CPR

May 02--HUGHSON -- As of Monday, nearly 500 more residents of Stanislaus County are capable of saving a life when faced with a victim of sudden cardiac arrest.

During physical education classes, the sixth- through eighth-graders at Emilie J. Ross Middle School got hands-on instruction in compression-only CPR. It was the first outreach beyond Modesto in a countywide effort to educate middle-schoolers in the lifesaving technique.

Those students are at just the right age to be taught, said Kristy Kuhn, a clinical and education specialist with American Medical Response. They're old enough to fully understand and remember the technique, and they have the body weight to perform the chest compressions.

Across the nation, only 10 percent of all out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest victims survive to reach hospital discharge. But when considering only cases in which a bystander administered aid until medical responders arrived, the survival rate jumps.

In our county, if someone suffered sudden cardiac death, and that person received bystander CPR, that alone improved survival from that event threefold. Nothing else we do in medicine gives us a 300 percent improvement.

Dr. Kevin Mackey, medical director of the Mountain-Valley Emergency Medical Services Agency

"It's not fancy equipment or the medicines we administer," AMR paramedic Chad Braner told students during one period. "None of that raises a person's chances to 20, 25, 50 percent. It starts with you guys, when you find someone, or witness sudden cardiac arrest, when you do CPR, that's the No. 1 thing that will save lives."

Conversely, every minute someone doesn't perform CPR, a victim's chances of survival decrease 10 percent. "If a firetruck takes five minutes to arrive after you've witnessed an incident and could have started CPR, the chance of survival falls to 50 percent."

Gathered in the gym, the kids were taught the three C's:

• Check responsiveness -- "Shake and shout" at the person to see if he or she can be roused.
• Call 911.
• Compressions -- Begin chest compressions at a rate of at least 100 a minute. On an adult, the chest needs to be compressed two inches.

Without a stopwatch, how do you gauge how fast you're going? Get an uptempo song going inside your head, the students were told. The longtime song of choice for CPR instructors, of course, is the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive," which was played as kids practiced Monday.

You guys are now going to be out there, and if you see somebody go down, you'll be able to make an impact. That's huge.

Mark Mendenhall, ProTransport-1 paramedic, to Ross Middle School students

"You need to push down hard. Don't be afraid to hurt the person," ProTransport-1 paramedic Mark Mendenhall told the students. "If they're dead, what's a bruise going to matter? If you save a life, then a bruise, even a broken rib, is a small price to pay."

About 1,000 people die of sudden cardiac arrest in the U.S. each day, Mendenhall said. Just while the students were learning CPR, that means about 20 deaths.

425 Number of sudden cardiac arrest incidents in Stanislaus County in 2015

Because CPR makes such a lifesaving difference, the Mountain-Valley Emergency Medical Services Agency, which directs all out-of-hospital medical operations for Stanislaus County, is working to improve the community's knowledge, said Dr. Kevin Mackey, the agency's medical director.

Members of running groups, biking groups, Rotary clubs, church groups and more have been taught. "This is the nut we've been trying to crack," Mackey said of getting into middle schools. "We've been working on getting into the schools for three years, really aggressively over the past year."

All seventh- and eighth-graders in Modesto schools have been taught, he said, and Hughson is the first outreach in an effort to educate students throughout the county. The plan ultimately is to teach all seventh- and eighth-graders each year, so children have been trained twice by the time they enter high school.

"What you saw today was the beginning of a massive project that is backed and supported by every ambulance provider, every fire district and our schools," Mackey said.

48 Percentage of survival upon witnessed events in which a bystander started CPR

In 2015, there were 425 victims of sudden cardiac death in Stanislaus County, he said. Among the incidents that were witnessed when a bystander did CPR and responders found a "shockable" rhythm, the victims were revived nearly 48 percent of the time. That means 23 people are alive in the county who at some point in 2015 were technically dead, the doctor said.

"That's neurologically intact, meaning that person can kiss their loved ones, balance a checkbook, return to life as they once knew it," thanks to CPR, he said. "That is a remarkable statistic."

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