Resident Advisors participated in a one-hour "Hands-Only" cardiopulmonary resuscitation training session Aug. 14 for the first time in the history of the Residence Life staff training program.
The training, developed by the American Red Cross, is part of Residence Life's effort to increase awareness about the dangers of cardiac arrest and the importance of being prepared to react in situations in which CPR is necessary.
"Hands-Only Citizen CPR is intended to fill the gap between the time an incident occurs and the professional first-responders (paramedics, police, fire) arrive at the scene of the incident." William Ashby, assistant vice president of Student Affairs and associate dean of students, said in an email. "In addition, Senior Residents will receive training on responding to choking victims and the use of AED devices."
Third-year College student Justine Broecker initiated the effort when she applied for funding from the Parents Committee, a fundraising body comprised of students' parents, last March. The committee awarded the project $1,800, which covered half of the CPR training fees, while Residence Life provided the other half of the funding.
Hands-Only CPR, also called Citizen CPR, does not include mouth-to-mouth breaths. The American Heart Association introduced this newly-revised method of CPR in 2010. Hands-Only CPR increases the chance that a bystander will take action in a cardiac emergency because it is "an easy to remember and effective option to those bystanders who ... are afraid to help because they are not confident that they can remember and perform the steps of conventional CPR," according to the AHA's website.
In addition to the relative simplicity of Citizen CPR, this new method includes less expensive training sessions.
"My initial idea, which was supported by several members of our community ... was to train an entire first-year dorm in CPR, since I'm an RA," Broecker said. "However, [conventional] CPR training is extremely expensive - around $50 per person usually - and time consuming. I realized I needed to find alternatives."
Broecker first learned of Citizen CPR, which costs $15 per person to learn through the Red Cross, after contacting two former University students who raised $26,000 to train Albemarle High School students in CPR, she said. "They proposed the idea of training RAs instead of first years and they told me about Citizen training, which is shown to be by far the most essential component in resuscitation according to AHA guidelines that were recently revised."
After receiving the funding, Broecker teamed up with Ashby and several other volunteers to discuss how to implement the training, she said.
"The actual training session went really well, and people were really excited about it," Broecker said. "Around 200 RAs practiced on mannequins."
Residence Life plans to expand its efforts to promote "resuscitation awareness," Broecker added.
"We ... intend to create broader awareness about resuscitation around Grounds and at its core, this effort is about providing all of us within the community an opportunity to be more than bystanders under challenging or difficult circumstances," Ashby said. "We believe that creating and fostering this awareness within our residential communities will prove to be an effective strategy"
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