County’s students to learn CPR starting this fall
PE teachers will provide training during biology classes in high schools.
High school biology class in Palm Beach County just got a little more hands on: Every student in the course is going to learn Hands-Only CPR beginning this fall. That will put about 11,000 more life savers on the region’s streets in one year, and more each year that follows.
It is another step in a national campaign to put a dent in the number of deaths and injury that result when hearts stop beating — and it wasn’t an easy sell.
Across the U.S., 36 states require schools to teach students how to compress someone’s chest should a heart fail — but Florida isn’t one of them, despite years of effort by the American Heart Association.
So here, the organization is taking the state one county school district at a time. Palm Beach County is No. 7.
No one is prouder to be on that short list than School Board member Erica Whitfield, whose last job was as the district’s wellness coordinator and who sits on the board of the local heart association. But even she proved difficult to persuade.
“It’s funny how against it I was Get more news every day about Palm Beach County schools at the Extra Credit blog. at first,” Whitfield admitted.
She had the same objections that many lawmakers in Tallahassee have expressed: “I felt like people were asking us for
one more thing. I don’t like asking teachers to be overwhelmed.” Also, who was going to pay for it? Who was going to do the training?
“Obviously, I love health. I learned from other communities how they’ve done this,” Whitfield said. “What swayed me was what this means to the families.”
While some people may worry about performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on a stranger, Whitfield said, “often it’s their own family members they will save.”
The life-saving technique dates back more than a century. In 1903, Dr. George Crile reported the first time a person was revived by those external compressions, according to the American Health Association.
For decades, those certified in the skill used a combination of chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth breathing. But in 2009, the association got behind the equally effective Hands-Only CPR, advising bystanders who witness an adult suddenly collapsing to call 911 and then provide “high-quality” compressions to the chest. (The heart association still recommends chest and breaths CPR for infants, children, people who are overdosing or drowning and people who collapse because of breathing problems.)
This also spawned a revival of the Bee Gees’ hit “Stayin’ Alive,” as it had the perfect tempo for timing those compressions, which should clock in at 100 to 120 beats per minute.
Not to get lost in the age of the bell bottom, the American Heart Association has added more current tunes to the list including “Crazy in Love” by Beyonce, “Hips Don’t Lie” from Shakira and “Walk the Line” by Johnny Cash.
With some more tunes to compress by, the school district eased through the logistics of training teachers to train students.
Staff began with a pilot program last school year. In November, 75 middle and high school physical education teachers were trained to deliver the lesson in the span of one class period. The American Heart Association supplied the teaching kits including video introduction, lesson materials and 10 rubbery dummies on which to practice.
“That’s the important part. They have to sit and do it themselves. We don’t want them to just sit and watch a video or watch a teacher demonstrate. They learn by doing,” said Tonya Eherhardt, regional vice president of community health for the heart association.
Each high school got at