As part of their 2017 conference, The Power of One, Rotary District 5650 is teaming up with the American Red Cross of Nebraska/SW Iowa and Kansas, with the goal of training 1000 people or more to do “citizen CPR.”
Gary Bren, Conference Chair, says the average survival rate from a heart attack is only 7 to 10% -- in part because, on average, it takes over 8 minutes for a first responder to arrive. He says that nationally only about 30% of the time are bystanders doing anything to try to help during that crucial time.
“What we need to do is to get more people trained, and we need to get more people to understand what they can do when someone collapses. Some people are afraid because they are afraid they will get sued if they do something wrong, and there is a Good Samaritan Law in both Iowa and Nebraska – that as long as you don’t exceed the bounds of what you’ve been trained—if you break a rib or something doing CPR – you won’t get sued for that.”
Bren says in the Omaha-Council Bluffs area alone we could save as many as 450 lives every year with this kind of training.
This free citizen-CPR training takes place Saturday, August 12th at 2:30 p.m. at the Creighton University Harper Center. Bren says the training only takes about 10 to 15 minutes and that other activities are planned for those waiting for a session.
He says the entire two-day conference includes several inspiring speakers related to the theme, The Power of One, and is open to the public for a registration fee.
For more information, the website is http://rotarydistrict5650.org/