Russellville Fire Department undergoes CPR training
By Lauren Wester
lauren.wester@fct.wpengine.com
Education is a vital component when it comes to health and safety. Last week the Russellville Fire Department was making a concerted effort to improve CPR education and skills – with an aim to improve the CPR education of the community as well.
Alabama EMS Region One Director Dion Schultz conducted the hands-only CPR practice. He introduced a new and proven method for improving the quality of CPR: a metronome. The metronome’s beeping is intended to keep the CPR-giver on rhythm and improve his or her rate of compression.
“It takes roughly 10 compressions at the proper rate and depth to get the heart where it needs to be to get the blood to circulate properly,” Schultz said.
The metronome can be downloaded as a free app through Android or Apple. It also records the depth and release of the compressions and provides a monitor that shows the CPR-giver how he or she is doing. The appropriate depth is about two inches, according to Schultz.
This was RFD Capt. Randy Seal’s first time practicing with the beeping metronome.
“We want the community to know that we’re working on improving our survival rate and getting it right for the people,” Seal said.
Alabama’s current survival rate for cardiac arrest is less than 10 percent, according to Schultz. This new metronome’s data-backing shows how using it can increase the quality of the CPR being given and get it up to 90 percent, which is considered high performance CPR, Schultz said.
While the overall survival rate is still low, it is slowly improving thanks to the efforts being made to educate the public about CPR. A lot of people are afraid to do the compressions for hands-only CPR because they don’t want to hurt the person in need, but far more damage is done by waiting than could be done by the compressions, according to Schultz.
“Every minute you’re off-chest, that patient loses a 10 percent chance of survival,” Schultz said.
The Russellville Fire Department offers CPR training year-round to the public. Any citizen can go to the fire department and receive CPR training for free, with the exception being if that person is in need of a course completion card; then there is a fee.
