MILILANI, Hawaii (KHON2) — Teaching local students how to save lives is the goal of a new pilot program in Hawaii public schools by instructing keiki how to perform CPR and properly use AED machines.
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Tenth-graders at Mililani High School are the first in the state to receive the training for CPR and AED machines through the pilot. The Hawaii Heart Foundation executive director said it is long overdue since there are over 1,000 cardiac arrests on Oahu every year.
“We have a 30% bystander CPR rate, meaning that 70% will not get compressions before fire arrives. Ask any firefighter you know, ‘Was somebody doing CPR when you arrived?’ ‘No.’ And so we end up with a 10% survival rate,” HHF executive director Pam Foster said.
The acronym CPR takes on a new meaning in the cardiac arrest response training:
- Call — One person gets in touch with 911.
- Push — A second person starts chest compressions.
- Respond — A third person retrieves an AED.