Borough 8th-graders receive comprehensive CPR training

HOUSTON — The gymnasium at Houston Middle School was filled momentarily Thursday with that classic Bee Gees favorite from the 1977 movie “Saturday Night Fever.”

But the crooner on the other end was an unlikely sort who spends his days saving lives, not retreading disco hits.

“Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive — Ah, ha, ha, ha stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive,” sang Chief Brian Wallace, of Central Mat-Su Emergency Services. At 100 beats per minute, the disco favorite “Stayin’ Alive” can be a real life-saver, he said.

That’s the number of chest compressions per minute used when performing hands-only CPR, Wallace told the Houston eighth-graders. He was one of six volunteers from Central Mat-Su Emergency Services who spent the morning teaching students how to use hands-only CPR to save a life.

Because most heart attacks — 80 percent — happen at home, Wallace said it is very important that more people in the Mat-Su Borough know how to perform CPR.

But if a bystander is not present to begin CPR, the chances of surviving a heart attack fall 10 percent for every minute CPR is delayed, according to the American Heart Association. And the organization estimates that only 25 percent of people who need CPR receive it before responders arrive.

Wallace said the idea is that hands-only CPR can keep oxygenated blood moving to the brain and heart, delaying tissue damage and possibly preventing brain damage until emergency responders arrive.

If someone begins CPR immediately, Kara Boothby, Emergency Services area assistant, said statistics show a person’s chance of survival doubles or triples.

“Everything you need to know to rescue someone is in those boxes,” Wallace told the Houston students, who were the first eighth-graders in the borough to receive the training. “Pay attention to the video. This is what you are going to teach your family.”

Then he switched gears for a moment to show students how big their impact could be if each of the 18 teens taught five others their new skill.

“That’s 90 people,” Wallace said. “Our goal in the next five years is to have half the community trained in CPR.”

And Houston Middle safety officer and volunteer firefighter Tanya Larrabee said students who taught the skill to five others would be treated to a pizza lunch.

After the brief video overview, firefighter and EMT Brandon Goentzel reminded students of the three key steps to hands-only CPR.

• First, when someone seems to be in distress, get their attention and ask if they are OK.

• Second, if they do not respond, call 911 immediately.

• Third, start chest compressions.

“It helps us save lives if you can start CPR right then and there,” Goentzel said.

Students were tentative at first as they clasped their hands together, one on top of the other and pushed down hard with the heel in the center of their manikin’s chest. After a few repetitions, many students stopped to shake out their sore wrists.

“It’s not a little bit and then stop. It’s a continuous rhythm,” Wallace said. “You are making their heartbeat. You have to do it for five minutes, 10 minutes, continuously until we get there.”

He said performing CPR on a real person may leave them with cracked ribs or a broken sternum.

“They might be a little sore,” Wallace said. “But I’ll take that over the alternative any day.”

Houston eighth-grader Bradley Fortin, 14, said he learned a lot and can imagine using the skills in the future.

He said he might grow up to be a paramedic. But mostly, he said he hopes he’ll be a hockey coach someday, in which case, he said he could use his CPR training there, too.

“I learned a lot. I loved being able to do this and I love that the Mat-Su Fire Department is doing this,” Fortin said. “Young people like us need to know how to save someone’s life.”

But Wallace said he needs the community’s help to provide similar opportunities to the rest of the Mat-Su Borough’s eight-graders.

Each kit includes a manikin and a DVD with step-by-step lessons on hands-only CPR and continues into more advanced skills and costs $25. Wallace said he has applied to the Mat-Su Health Foundation for grant funds and, if selected, he said it would keep the program alive for another three years.

“They are willing to help us get started, but they want to know how we’re going to keep it going,” he said.

In addition to training eighth-graders, Wallace said volunteers also are willing to provide kits and training to interested businesses and other groups of 50 or more. For more information, to make a donation or schedule a training session, call 982-4683 or visit lorenmarshallfoundation.org. Or, mail tax deductable donations to Kara Boothby via the Loren Marshall Foundation to P.O. Box 190474, Anchorage, AK 99519.

Contact Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.