East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) delivered a 'restart a heart' training session for staff and students at Christ’s this week.
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency life-saving procedure performed when the heart stops beating effectively. National ‘Restart a Heart’ day takes place each year in October to raise awareness of CPR and the use of defibrillators (a medical device which delivers an electric shock).
The training was the initiative of Librarian, Catherine whose father owes his life to the service following a health emergency earlier this year.
She said:
“My Dad was not in a high-risk group, and I am so grateful to EAAA for their intervention. Learning CPR is useful for everyone as, if you ever need it for real, at least you will have an idea of what to do.”
Attending to people experiencing cardiac arrest accounts for over a quarter of the callouts of EAAA. The current survival rate for an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in this region is 8%.
Jack Parkin, Community CPR trainer said:
“Bystander CPR can make a big impact towards raising survival rates. If people find themselves first at an incident, our training gives them the confidence and skill to begin CPR before the emergency services arrive.”
Participants were shown how to perform CPR and practised the use of defibrillators.
Last month Catherine, who is scared of heights, did a skydive to raise money for the charity and she persuaded two colleagues Thorunn (Head of HR) and Holly (Assistant Librarian) to join her for the jump.
Catherine said:
“We were all terrified but determined to push ourselves out of our comfort zone for an amazing cause!
The EAAA are so much more than the helicopter that everyone knows – there are the Critical Care Cars (which helped my Dad, as it was too foggy to fly), the aftercare team, and the running of community CPR sessions, amongst many other things.”
More about East Anglia Air Ambulance.