Thompson Local News

ACT Foundation expanding CPR and defibrillator program outside Thompson

 

A partnership between RD Parker and the Advanced Coronary Treatment Foundation is now expanding.

 

All throughout the year, students from Thompson’s high school learned valuable first aid through ACT’s High School CPR and Defibrillator Training Program.

 

Operations Manager Jennifer Edwards explains more about the ACT Foundation and their program.

 

“The ACT Foundation is a charitable organization whose mission is to empower Canadians to save lives. And what we really focus on is setting up high school CPR and defibrillator training programs. So what we’re doing here is, we’re setting up a CPR program where we’ve donated the equipment, the training mannequins and the training defibrillators, to the schools, and then we’ve trained the teachers as instructors for the students. So the teachers offer the program as part of the curriculum every year. So it ensures that every student has the opportunity to learn the basic life saving skills of CPR before they graduate.”

 

Edwards also explains why it’s important for young adults to have this training.

 

“Early CPR and early defibrillation combined can increase survival rates by up to 75%. So by teaching young people this basic life skill of how to do CPR and how to use a defibrillator, it’s actually increasing the survival rates of people before they go to the hospital, if they should suffer a cardiac arrest. But part of the program is recognizing the signs and symptoms of a heart attack or stroke, so knowing what those distress signs are, so that you know you need to get help.”

 

More than 330 students will be trained in CPR and how to use a defibrillator each year, with the program now expanding into schools in Nelson House and Wabowden.

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