Saving lives comes full circle

The Mat-Su Borough has a whole new crop of emergency responders today — thanks to a handful of volunteers from the borough’s Emergency Services Department.

Six volunteers from the Central Mat-Su Emergency Services, spent Thursday morning teaching members of the eighth-grade class at Houston Middle School how to use hands-only CPR to save a life.

“Most people who have heart attacks don’t fall down inside hospitals,” said Brian Wallace, Central Mat-Su EMS chief. In fact, he said 80 percent of heart attacks happen at home.

That matters because it usually takes several minutes from the time a 911 call is made until responders reach the scene, Wallace said. And according to the American Heart Association, the chances of surviving a heart attack fall 10 percent for every minute CPR is delayed.

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. However, the American Heart Association estimates that only 25 percent of people who need CPR receive it before responders arrive.

Kara Boothby, Emergency Services area assistant, said statistics also show that this type of CPR doubles or triples a person’s chance of survival.

That’s why emergency services purchased enough training kits from the American Heart Association to send one home with every Houston eighth-grader, and spent two hours at the middle school Thursday morning teaching students the basics.

“You’re part of the rescue team now,” Wallace told the eighth-grade Hawks.

He switched gears for a moment to show students how big their impact could be if each of the 18 students in that session taught five others what they learned in the gym Thursday morning.

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

That’s about 40,000 people in the Mat-Su Borough.

Emergency Services volunteers challenged each student to take a kit home and teach five of their family members or friends how to do hands-only CPR. Students who meet that goal will be treated to a pizza lunch, said Tanya Larrabee, Houston Middle safety officer and volunteer firefighter.

Wallace and Boothby are board members for the Loren Marshall Foundation, which purchased the CPR kits for the first group of students.

Now they need our help to continue teaching Valley residents to save lives using CPR.

Each kit includes a manikin and a DVD with step-by-step lessons on how to perform the Heimlich maneuver, CPR on an infant and CPR with rhythmic breaths. And each kit costs $25.

But responders need financial assistance to purchase kits to continue training the rest of the eighth-grade students in the Mat-Su.

Responders also have volunteered to provide kits and training to businesses and other groups of 50 or more that would like to join the ranks of Valley residents trained to save lives, Wallace said. For more information, to make a donation, or schedule a training session, call 982-4683 or visit lorenmarshallfoundation.org.

Our hats are off to emergency responders like Sally Beach, Kara Boothby, Brian Shea, Tim Nixon, Erik Fogleman, Daniel Saunders and Brian Wallace who routinely risk their lives to save others. Thank you for the lives you save every day.