Bill's CPR Hit in Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Congrats to Bill for his first major print hit highlighting CPR -- on the heels of National CPR/AED Awareness Week. The story ran on Sunday, June 8.








CPR makes difference, one life at a time
By ANGIE SUMMERS
Star-Telegram staff writer

When Shalique Martin collapsed suddenly during football practice in February, the world briefly stopped for all the students standing on the Coble Middle School football field.
The eighth-grader didn't have a heartbeat.

But offensive coordinator coach Brian Randle knows cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He kept the other players calm and administered CPR for several minutes until paramedics arrived.

"It was scary," Randle was quoted as saying at the time. "I was just hoping that he'd make it through."

The 14-year-old did. Randle saved his life.

Martin underwent heart surgery after the incident. He returned to school in March.

He lived because one person knew CPR.

Last week was National CPR/AED Awareness Week, designed to raise awareness for CPR training and train the public in the use of automated external defibrillators, machines that can restart the hearts of those who suffer sudden cardiac arrest.

The American Heart Association reports that an estimated 166,000 people die each year from sudden cardiac arrest, an electrical malfunction that causes rapid and chaotic heart activity and then causes the heart to stop beating.

The city of Arlington has worked to reduce that number by putting AEDs in most public buildings and schools. The device is labeled with directions, so it is easy to use.

The city joined the heart association, the Arlington Fire Department and the University of Texas at Arlington School of Nursing in 2006 to start a program that aims to improve cardiac arrest survival by teaching 10 percent of the city's population how to perform CPR.

Since then, the community-based CPaRlington program has trained 16,700 people how to perform the lifesaving technique.

Many organizations have received the training. This school year, the program was offered to six eighth-grade classes in the Arlington school district. Five classes are scheduled for training next school year.

That will mean that almost every eighth-grader in the Arlington district soon will be CPR-trained. Each trained student also receives a personal CPR Anytime Kit to take home so they can share the information with their family and friends.

The kit, available thorough the heart association, includes an inflatable manikin, DVD and instructions.

Although chest compressions combined with mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing is the best way to deliver CPR, the American Heart Association recently said that performing hands-only CPR also can save lives. That technique gives those who may be reluctant to perform the traditional procedure a better chance of resuscitating someone.

The rules are simple. Lay the person on the floor face-up, and put one hand on top of the other in the middle of the victim's chest. Push hard and fast, 100 times a minute -- the same rhythm as the beat of the Bee Gees song Stayin' Alive.

It's better to do something than nothing at all.

Just ask Shalique Martin.

What to do
If someone collapses:

1. Call 911
2. Put the victim on the floor face-up.
3. Put one hand on top of the other in the middle of the victim's chest.
4. Compress the person's chest 100 times a minute

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Online: www.americanheart.org/handsonlycpr or http://www.cparlington.org/
asummers@star-telegram.comANGIE SUMMERS, 817-548-5405