According to the American Hospital Association, bystanders who were at the scene of a sudden cardiac arrest said panic was the major obstacle to performing CPR. The simpler, hands-only technique, or compressions-only CPR, may help overcome panic and hesitation to act.

In a national survey sited by the AHA, Americans who had not been trained in CPR within the past five years said they would be more likely to perform hands-only CPR on a teen or adult who collapses suddenly. Hands-only CPR is an easy-to-remember and effective option for people who have been trained in CPR before, but who may not remember the steps of conventional CPR.

Merit Health Natchez is teaming up with American Medical Response (AMR) personnel to teach compressions-only CPR at a free lunch and learn on April 12 from noon until 1 p.m. in the first floor classroom at the hospital.

Every five years, the American Heart Association publishes updated guidelines, based on a thorough review of current science by international experts, for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and emergency cardiovascular care (ECC). In 2015, the AHA guidelines were updated to reflect that studies of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest adults who received hands-only CPR from a bystander were more likely to survive than those who didn’t receive any type of CPR from a bystander.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) unexpectedly takes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. Annually, AMR crews care for more than 30,000 SCA patients. Studies show that survival from SCA can be doubled or tripled if CPR is administered until emergency medical services arrive.  That fact inspired AMR to find innovative means for ensuring that local citizens know what to do when they encounter a victim of SCA.

Our local AMR will have paramedics and EMTs and the hospital will have nursing staff at the lunch and learn to provide participants with information on how to administer compressions-only CPR, as well as provide each participant with the opportunity to perform what they have learned on mannequins.

Our goal in offering this free program is to give citizens in our community the opportunity to gain valuable knowledge they in turn can use as an effective and life-saving procedure should the need arise.

The class is limited to 55 individuals, and pre-registration is required. You may call 601-443-2534 to register. Please look for more information coming soon on a community-wide event being planned to help reach hundreds, if not thousands of our local citizens achieve knowledge on performing compressions-only CPR. Someone’s life, including your own, may depend on a bystander knowing this valuable information.

Janeé McKinney is the chief quality officer for Merit Health Natchez.