National CPR and AED Awareness Week Highlights Lifesaving Skills, Collinsville Fire Offers Classes

This week marks CPR & AED Awareness Week, a campaign aimed at increasing public knowledge about cardiac arrest and the lifesaving techniques that can improve survival rates.

June 1-7 each year is National CPR and AED Awareness Week, spotlighting how lives can be saved if more Americans know CPR and how to use an AED. About 70 percent of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen in homes.

According to the American Heart Association, cardiac arrest occurs when an electrical malfunction in the heart disrupts its rhythm, halting blood flow to vital organs such as the brain and lungs.

To support community preparedness, the Collinsville Fire Department is offering American Heart Association CPR "Heartsaver" classes on select Wednesdays from 6 to 9 p.m. at Fire Station One, located at 130 South Clinton Street. These sessions cover infant, youth, and adult CPR, choking rescue techniques, and provide an introduction to the use of Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs).

Each year, more than 350,000 people in the United States experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest assessed by emergency medical services, including over 23,000 children, nearly 20% of whom are infants.

Survival from cardiac arrest heavily depends on immediate intervention with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

The American Heart Association reports that about 90% of people who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests do not survive, but prompt CPR can double or even triple a victim’s chance of survival.