Students flock for chance to learn life-saving CPR skills at uni demo
HUNDREDS of Glasgow students dedicated their free time to learning a life-saving skill.
Glasgow Caledonian University held a Restart a Heart event to teach students and staff CPR, in partnership with Save a Life Scotland.
Emergency services including Police Scotland, Scottish Ambulance Service and Scottish Fire and Rescue Service demonstrated their skills to participants.
Liz Simpson, nurse lecturer at GCU, said: “We reckon more than 300 people trained which is really good.
“The best thing about today was we had a load of different disciplines teaching the public. We had representations from Police Scotland, Scottish Fire and Rescue, Scottish Ambulance Service along with charities and voluntary organisations.
“It’s always been a collaboration but this is the first time Police Scotland were involved so it’s nice to have all the emergency services.
“People were saying they wanted to take part because they’ve got relatives who have suffered cardiac arrest and wanted to come and learn a bit more about.
“Everyone came for different reasons but ultimately they wanted to learn CPR.”
She added: “It’s something everybody should know, its a life skill. It’s something we should be teaching everyone right the way through to adults.
“It’s a very simple skill and it can actually save lives.
“It only takes 10 minutes out of your day, it’s the difference between someone going home to their family and never seeing their family again.
“Our plan is to continue to keep teaching the students. Save a Life Scotland have now become one of the voluntary organisations that our students can volunteer with for their Common Good Award.”
Since launching the Save a Life Scotland campaign, survival rates from cardiac arrests in Scotland have been cut from one in 20, to one in 12.
The Evening Times is currently leading a campaign urging all of Scotland’s 32 local authorities to teach all secondary pupils CPR with support from British Heart Foundation.
Glasgow City Council was the first local authority in the UK to back our life-saving campaign and were followed by Aberdeen City, which is also looking into the number of defibrillators in schools.
The heart charity is now in talks with several other councils including Angus, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Falkirk, Inverclyde, Perth & Kinross, Renfrew, South Lanarkshire, Borders and South Lanarkshire.
The UK government has unveiled plans to make CPR training part of the school curriculum.
Every minute without CPR or defibrillation reduces a person’s chance of surviving a cardiac arrest by around 10 per cent.