With a new year comes new resolutions, and one Kanawha County agency hopes to convince residents to make one goal in 2016 that could save someone's life.
In an effort to increase the number of citizens trained in CPR, the Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority will double the number of CPR trainings it offers. Starting this month, the ambulance authority will hold trainings twice monthly that are open to the public, according to Mike Jarrett, chaplain and safety officer for the KCEAA.
"Our goal is everybody - we know that's not attainable, but we'd like to see more of our public trained in CPR," Jarrett said. "The training also handles some basic first aid, such as choking, and I think it inspires people to go further, like taking a first aid course, or even considering working in emergency services."
For those in cardiac distress, receiving timely CPR can mean the difference between life and death, Jarrett said. A person's chances of receiving CPR immediately, however, are a little over 30 percent, due in part to the number of civilians who are trained in administering it, Jarrett said.
"Your brain starts to lose vital cell function four to six minutes without oxygen," he said. "Oxygen isn't going to get there if the blood isn't being circulated."
Nationally, about 12 million people are trained in CPR, according to the American Heart Association, which has set a 2020 goal of having 20 million people trained to perform it. Cynthia Keely, mission life director for the American Heart Association in West Virginia, said the AHA also hopes to increase the likelihood of someone initiating CPR from 31 percent to 62 percent.
"This is so important, because your chance of survival outside a hospital is very low, so the more laypeople who learn it, the better," she said. "Currently, only about 8 percent of the people receiving CPR outside the hospital survive, so we want to increase that, and that all goes back to getting people formally trained."
While Keely said it's best to take an official CPR class, she added that receiving any training in CPR could be helpful in aiding someone during a cardiac episode. The AHA and the Red Cross have phone applications that teach CPR, and emergency responders are often able to explain the process by phone until help can arrive.
The Kanawha ambulance authority teaches multiple types of CPR, according to Jarrett, who stressed that the hands-portion of the technique is more important than the breathing, as the patient's blood is likely still oxygenated. The AHA has been recommending hands-only CPR since 2008, and recommends more than 100 chest compressions per minute that are at least two inches deep - a difficult pace for many people to maintain for more than a few minutes, and another reason the AHA wants to see more people trained.
"You'll work up quite a sweat doing 100 compressions in a minute," she said. "Doing high-quality CPR and having people there to relieve you, and having quick access to an automatic electronic defibrillator - those components, and having quick emergency response, are paramount for survival."
For Keely, who has successfully helped someone with CPR in the past, the technique is one of the best things a person can learn.
"My thought is, it's like any other training you can have, but with this one, you can possibly save a life," she said.
To learn more about CPR certification and training, call the KCEAA at 304-345-2132 or visit www.heart.org/cpr.
Reach Lydia Nuzum at lydia.nuzum@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5189 or follow @lydianuzum on Twitter.