CPR classes could help teens save lives

February 24, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

DALLAS

Sixteen-year-old Nicole Kennard likes to baby-sit.

She thought it would be a good idea to take one of the free cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, classes at The Heart Hospital Baylor Plano in Texas.

Sitting next to her dad, Dr. Warrett Kennard, a general and vascular surgeon, she learned what to do if someone collapses from heart failure, drowning or choking. She practiced compressions and breathing techniques and how to use an automatic external defibrillator, known as an AED, on a manikin’s inflated torso.

“It looks a lot easier on television,” Nicole says, acknowledging how much strength it takes to do compressions. But she seemed glad to know how to keep the blood flowing in case of a cardiac arrest.

The American Heart Association, which sells the “Family & Friends CPR Anytime” DVD used in the class, just recommended that CPR training and an overview of AEDs be required for high school graduation.

The AHA suggests that training all these teens could add a million civilian emergency responders every few years. That could make a life-saving difference in circumstances as common as choking or as extraordinary as the recent shooting in Tucson, Ariz.

Or these skills might save the life of someone with Sudden Cardiac Arrest.

Registered nurse Michelle Sension came up with the idea for these classes because of 16-year-old Zachary Schrah, who died of an undiagnosed heart condition at football practice at Plano East high school April 2, 2009. Zachary’s mother, Karen Schrah, started the nonprofit Living for Zachary foundation to raise awareness of SCA. By September of that year, The Heart Hospital Baylor Plano started Living for Zachary heart screenings for ages 13-22.

Sension, who helps administer these screenings, thought about how 92 percent of people that experience cardiac arrest outside a hospital die as Zachary did. She considered how the chance of survival might improve if more people could help get a victim’s heart beating before paramedics arrive.

Sension brainstormed her idea with respiratory therapist Veronica Contreras and other nurses who administer the Living for Zachary heart screenings.

Now they’re all helping lead the classes at the Heart Hospital Baylor Plano. The free program started in September.

“CPR saves lives,” Sension says. “We want to get the word out to parents and children that doing something rather than nothing saves lives.”

Nicole’s dad agrees.

“I think all kids need to learn CPR,” says Dr. Kennard, who is planning to bring Nicole’s 17-year-old brother to an upcoming class. “You never know when you need to use it.”