A St. John Vianney School eighth grader teaches younger students how to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR. (Photo courtesy of Hawaii Catholic Schools)
Hawaii Catholic Herald
If you are going to suddenly stop breathing, a good place to do it would be in a Hawaii Catholic school.
That’s because last month they all received CPR student training kits, thanks to an $18,000 grant from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation and the American Heart Association.
The goal here is to have every student become CPR-certified.
CPR stands for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. If a person stops breathing or their heart stops beating effectively, this lifesaving technique is used to restore oxygenated blood flow to the vital organs. The person administering CPR presses down on the victim’s chest to pump blood through the body, and/or gives breaths to oxygenate the blood being pumped.
At St. John Vianney School in Kailua, teacher Nicole Jones’s eighth graders spent a week researching and discussing heart health and learning how to perform CPR. They also learned how to use an automated external defibrillator (AED), a portable device that delivers an electric shock through the chest to the heart to allow a normal rhythm to resume following sudden cardiac arrest.
The eighth graders then taught CPR to the younger students, grades kindergarten through four.
“Our goal is to have every graduate from our schools leave us with confidence and ability to perform CPR,” said superintendent of Catholic schools Mike Rockers in a news release.
February was American Heart Month, an appropriate time to receive the kits and the training.
The kits included 10 inflatable manikins, 50 replacement airways and training DVDs.
Twenty-five kits were distributed. That’s one for every school but one, not counting the stand-along preschools.
Last year, 18 Hawaii Catholic schools participated in the Jump Rope for Heart campaign, raising $75,257 for the American Heart Association. Assistant superintendent Lovey Ann DeRego said that was one of the reasons the schools received the CPR kits.