The
American Heart Association is continuously working diligently to
bring CPR training to high schools. They’ve been very successful
within recent years, as they boast 1,000,000 graduates will know how
to administer CPR by the time they leave school each school year.
While
they’re regularly hosting training classes that are available to
the general public, they’ve made a concerted effort towards making
CPR training mandatory in high schools and have recently seen some
great success.
There
are currently 18 states that will require CPR training for high
school graduation by the 2016-2017 school year at the very latest,
but several of those states have already had it as a requirement for
quite a while.
Why
teach CPR?
Why
all the commotion, though? Does CPR really save that many lives? Even
if you’ve never been in a situation where CPR was required, it’s
important to realize that cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death
in the United States.
While
CPR may not have a 100% success rate in all cases, many of those
deaths could have been prevented had a citizen that was well-trained
in CPR been on hand to respond early to the situation.
First
responders on the scene can drastically improve the victim’s chance
at life, sometimes even as much as by two or three times when
compared to just receiving CPR when EMS arrives.
New
training methods
The
American Heart Association is working hard to train as many people as
they can in the practice and have begun rolling out newer
technologies. They now have a specially designed training kit
available for schools that can help drastically maximize teaching
efficiency.
Each
kit will be able to manage 10 students at one time and the device
itself will come jam packed with all of the latest technologies and
up to date research. One kit can easily go on to train hundreds of
students.
With the AHA’s recent successes in making CPR
training mandatory for graduation, they’ll be able to reach even
more students with this life saving and easy to learn technique.
The
timeline
Let’s
take a closer look at the states that have adopted laws that will
require CPR training:
1984
– A very early adopter, Alabama has been requiring its high school
graduates to receive training in CPR ever since the mid-80s.
2008
– Iowa begins to require CPR training for high school
graduation
2012 – Tennessee and Vermont being their
requirement
2013 – Rhode Island and Georgia get on board
2014
– The biggest year yet, with 10 states requiring training: New
Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas,
Texas, Minnesota, Utah, and Washington.
2015 – Idaho and
Oklahoma will begin its requirement for CPR training in the 2015-2016
school year.
2016 – Virginia will adopt its
requirements.
Learning CPR is a fantastic way to help cut back
the fatalities of one of America’s top killers. Around 383,000
cardiac arrests occur out of hospital every year. The majority of
these (88%) will occur within the victim’s home. CPR is one of the
best tools that the American Heart Association has in its continual
fight against cardiac arrests.
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