Posted by By Brian Quinn February 13, 2025 on Feb 19th 2025

A real lifesaver: Area residents attend CPR clinic

Local religious leaders and residents have refreshed their memories on how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation thanks to training offered by the American Heart Association, along with Rochester Regional Health.

Today, more than 350,000 cardiac arrests occur outside of hospitals in the United States annually. Nearly three out of four of those cardiac arrests happen in homes. About 90% of the time, these incidents prove fatal.

Finger Lakes rural hospitals President and Chief Operating Officer Dan Ierland said RRH and AHA came together to provide the hand-only CPR training.

“It’s really tailored to the lay person in their hoe environment or wherever they are. If they see somebody who collapses and needs CPR, they can immediately start with hands-only CPR, which has been proven to be a life-saving measure and can buy people significant time until healthcare resources can be there to provide additional measures,” Ireland said. “They’re open to anyone who has an interest and a desire to learn.”

The first session Wednesday was for religious leaders, Ireland said, with the idea that they could get the word out to their congegations about CPR as a lifesaving measure.

“Hopefully that word can spread out and people can learn and be able to have that ability, should they need it, wherever they are,” Ireland said as the public waited for its chance to get training. “The second half, we opened it up to the community. We have a number of them in there, ready to go through their session.”

Wednesday’s training was the first in the Batavia and Gensee County area. RRH and AHA are assessing the idea of having more training.

“We want to gauge the response oif this first one and determine what is the right cadence of these and amount of interest that we have,” Ireland said. “I would say, stay turned. So far, the response from the community and religious leaders is very positive.”

Newly released data, conducted by Decision Analyst on behalf of the American Heart Association, indicates more U.S. adults now say they feel ready to handle and respond to a cardiac arrest.

Dave Blake of Stafford said was with the Red Cross in the 1980s and ‘90s.

“I just think it’s a good thing to know when emergencies come up,” he said.

Blaked noted the incident in January 2023 when the Buffalo Bills’ Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest on the field.

“I think Damar Hamlin showed everybody that it’s a good thing to learn,” he said of CPR.

Bill McMullen said he’s learned CPR before. He was at the Healthy Living Campus for a refresher in CPR. He said he’s never had to perform CPR on a person.

“I coached for a number of years and we did this every year,” the former Batavia High School track and cross country coach said Wednesday.