Mobile CPR training stations teach lifesaving skills

Tuesday marks one year since Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field during their game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

And that started a flurry of people learning and becoming certified in CPR and using an automatic external defibrillator or AED.

Now, the University of Rochester Medical Center and the American Heart Association are expanding CPR accessibility at the Eastview Mall. The two organizations put a mobile, hands-only CPR training station in the mall right outside of Dick’s House of Sport for people to learn and practice on.

The machine runs through a training and practice session and then a 30 second test. Overall, the whole experience may take five minutes, but you’ll have the knowledge for a lifetime.

“It doesn’t take long to do. And it just makes you feel like, yes, I know what this is like. I can do this,” Judy Dumar, who used the machine said.

Dumar and Joy Jennejohn both used the machine, and decided they wanted to become CPR certified after finishing.

“It’s physically harder than I thought, but it’s simple,” Jenne John said.

“My heart is still beating from doing this. So yay to first responders and doctors and nurses. I congratulate you, but I’m glad that I did this,” Dumar said.

And Cardiologist Robert Rosenblatt says that when someone knows CPR and administers it, it can increase the survival rate of the person who needs it by 20 to 30 percent.

“Survival rates historically for cardiac arrest are pretty poor. About one in ten people or 10% of people survive. And out-of-hospital, cardiac arrest, early CPR and just, you know, good CPR awareness from bystanders and initiation of CPR can increase the survival rates two to three times,” Rosenblatt said.

And not only are these available a year after Damar Hamlin collapsed, but it’s also been two weeks since a 15-year-old Monroe High School student collapsed on the court during his JV basketball game.

“There’s many reasons for a young athlete to go down, like what happened to Damar, and I think what happened to that 15-year-old was commotio cordis, I think he got hit in the chest and it it happens. It’s not that infrequent. And we have had several cases locally, I think years before. I think there was a kid that went down in Brighton, if I remember correctly, you know, in years gone by, unfortunately the survival rate for that was very low,” Rosenblatt said.

This is why Rosenblatt says it is extremely important to learn CPR and have these machines in an accessible place like the mall.

The mobile station will be available for people to use through January 31.