On May 15, 28 Briarcliff Manor high school students will learn how to save a life. Biology teacher Yelena Silverman thought that everyone should be learning CPR and decided to first learn it herself. In April 2014 she became an American Heart Association CPR Instructor so that she could bring this life saving skill to her students and faculty at Briarcliff High.
Ms. Silverman did her training at HealthSav in Rockland County and will utilize the resources of HealthSav for the class on May 15. The class was open to all students and will run for 5 hours after which each student will be certified in the American Heart Association’s Heartsaver CPR AED curriculum. CPR certification comes from certain CPR courses where both cognitive and practical skills are tested during the course. However, it is not necessary to be trained for certification to learn how to save a life. Anyone can easily learn basics of CPR in just a few minutes.
The American Heart Association introduced “Hands Only” CPR in 2010. The process is as simple as just making sure 911 is called and then placing both hands, one on top of the other, in the center of the chest and compressing the persons breastbone at least 2 inches (basically as hard as you can) at 100 pumps per minute. To realize what 100 per minute is just do it to the 1970’s disco hit “Staying Alive” that went to the top of the charts for the Bee Gees.
The American Heart Association wants everyone to learn Hands Only CPR. If they want to learn more than a facility like HealthSav, which offers courses 7 days a week, would be needed for the training. The AHA is also working in each state to make Hands Only CPR training mandatory before graduation. In New York State the bill is currently in Albany for the 2014 legislative session and the AHA hopes that it can get this measure passed before the session ends in June.
If you want to support this bill you can let your elected officials know by going to the AHA website www.becprsmart.org and clicking to send the letter on the site which automatically will go to your elected officials by your zip code.
