Kansas Senate bill mandates 911 personnel undergo training to help callers administer CPR

Republican Sen. Joe Claeys lauded a bill establishing a statewide program to train emergency dispatch personnel to deliver timely CPR instructions to 911 callers.

The legislation rolled into Senate Bill 379 was the product of a task force that studied gaps in delivery of medical services and the potential life-saving idea of broadened training for employees working at 911 dispatch centers. The bill would set minimum training standards for PSAPs, or public safety answering points, that would be part of a coordinated system. The program would involve the State 911 Board and allow for hiring of a medical director.

“It’s good, solid policy,” said Claeys, of Wichita. “What I can’t support is what it doesn’t do. This bill makes everything voluntary.”

He said 48 of 105 counties in Kansas were dead zones in terms of 911 dispatchers delivering CPR instructions by telephone. Claeys said the service gap represented half of the state’s land mass and intersected 43% of highways in Kansas.

The areas of greatest need were in rural Kansas where ambulance response times were slower, he said.

“There’s an old saying, ‘hope is not a strategy,'” Claeys said. “But voluntary is just hope wearing a cheap suit.”

He anticipated local administrators of 911 centers would object to the mandate. He said it wouldn’t be proper for cities and counties to forgo CPR training and unnecessarily place motorists driving through the state in harm’s way.

“Where you live should not decide whether you live,” Claeys said. “That’s not local control. That’s a lottery and the losing ticket is a body bag.”

The Senate adopted Claeys’ amendment and forwarded SB 379 to the Kansas House in mid-February. In the House Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Committee meeting on Tuesday, the Senate’s bill calling for the training mandate for 911 personnel generated significant debate.

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Daniel Cooper, police chief in Oakley, said he supervised the longest-serving multicounty dispatch center in Kansas. He endorsed the original form of the bill, which made the 911 dispatcher training voluntary but held out the potential of start-up funding to train dispatchers to offer CPR information by telephone.

The legislation would set training expectations that complied with national guidelines for advising 911 callers on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and compression-only CPR. It also would establish civil liability protections for dispatchers.

Cooper said the bill was the “beginning of a solution” for cities and counties seeking to upgrade 911 dispatch systems, but the Senate amendment mandating CPR training by Jan. 1, 2028, would be a mistake.

“I do not believe that this bill is the appropriate place to mandate training of PSAPs,” Cooper said. “I also take issue with a statement I have heard in studying this issue and bill, ‘My location should not be a factor on the service I receive.’ This is an emotional statement. It is a fact of life that your location has an effect on the service you receive. It is not possible for the state to legislate this fact out of existence.”

Wichita County Sheriff Kristopher Casper drove 350 miles from Leoti to tell the House committee he favored a voluntary approach to CPR training. He said the original bill approached the issue “strategically and intelligently.”

“I would have to oppose any and all mandates no matter how they entered the bill,” said Casper, who served on the state task force that studied the topic. “It forces us to either comply or become the villain. The minute you tell somebody they have to do something, out where I’m at, it’s hard to convince them its a good idea.”

Ed Klumpp, a former Topeka police chief and a lobbyist for associations of sheriffs and police chiefs, said Claeys’ amendment had overwhelmed debate on the bill.

“What’s getting lost in this conversation is we’re not opposed to the basic bill,” Klumpp said. “The only contention here is the mandate.”

Lives hang in balance

Kari Rinker, who represents the American Heart Association, said only one in 10 people suffering cardiac arrest in the United States survive the experience. Every minute that passed without intervention by CPR decreased survivability by 10%, she said.

Twenty-two states, including Oklahoma and Nebraska, require 911 personnel to be trained to coach people by telephone to improve delivery of CPR aid.

“Every Kansan should be guaranteed lifesaving telecommunicator CPR phone instruction,” she said. “Telecommunicators are truly the first first responders.”

She said the current amended bill shouldn’t be viewed as state overreach, but the setting of a statewide floor for 911 health and safety responses.

Teenager Reagan Herrman, who went into cardiac arrest in 2023 while playing a basketball game in Topeka, said swift intervention by people trained in CPR saved her life. She was subjected to CPR and one shock from a defibrillator before she resumed breathing.

“What would have happened if I didn’t have those heroes in the crowd?” she said. “Before this incident, my parents were not CPR trained. We would have had to rely on the 911 operator. It is my hope that my story can serve as a catalyst for change.”

Rep. Emil Berquist, a Park City Republican, said that as an 18-year-old he was present when his father died despite attempts to revive him. About three years ago, Berquist’s son stopped breathing while riding in a vehicle. Berquist had his wife call 911, but Georgia at that time didn’t require emergency dispatch workers to be trained in sharing CPR information with callers.

“He didn’t make it through,” Berquist said. “It’s a reminder to me that anything we can do towards those instantaneous decisions being made better, is a really good thing.”