Enbridge, Heart and Stroke Foundation train Alberta students in CPR, AED operation
It was a shock to the system – and it was exactly what Curtis Rosenau needed.
In 2006, Rosenau was a fit, active 14-year-old working up a sweat during evening basketball practice with his teammates in Cochrane, Alta., when he suddenly collapsed into cardiac arrest. Thankfully, his father Lorne, who coached the team, and a lifeguard at the Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre had cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training, and the facility had an automated external defibrillator (AED) on site.
Lorne and the centre’s lifeguard applied the AED, delivering two shocks, and took turns performing CPR during the eight minutes it took paramedics to arrive. Their quick thinking, and decisive actions, saved Curtis’s life that night.
Through a new partnership launched today, the Heart and Stroke Foundation and Enbridge are hoping to create more stories like Curtis Rosenau’s – and more “heart heroes” like his dad.
With a $350,000 Safe Community grant from Enbridge, the Heart and Stroke Foundation will be installing 33 AEDs in Alberta schools near our projects and operations – and training a total of nearly 2,000 students and staff at those schools in CPR and proper use of an AED – through the end of 2015.
The program kicked off this morning, with Katherine Nilson training 100 Grade 10 students at Sherwood Park’s Salisbury Composite High School to become life-savers. Students in each session receive two hours of hands-on training by registered instructors, and a “CPR anytime kit” that includes a DVD, a CPR mannequin, and a training manual.
“There are 40,000 cardiac arrests a year in Canada. That’s one Canadian every 13 minutes. About 85 per cent of those happen outside a health-care setting – at home, at school, at a soccer game, at the hockey arena – and only five per cent survive,” says Nilson, who co-ordinates the foundation’s AED and CPR School Program in Alberta.
“Any CPR is better than no CPR,” she adds. “By calling 9-1-1, performing early CPR, and using an AED, we can double the chances of survival from cardiac arrest.”
Enbridge’s Safe Community program, originally targeted at first response organizations near our projects and operations, funds initiatives that promote the health and wellness of our neighbours.
“The bottom line is that that improved access to AEDs, and more widespread knowledge of CPR, are fundamental to our well-being,” says Lorna St. Thomas, Enbridge’s Manager of Community Partnerships. “As we widen the scope of Enbridge’s Safe Community program, we are thrilled to support the tremendous work being performed by the Heart and Stroke Foundation out in the community – work that will undoubtedly save lives.”
This initial phase of Enbridge’s partnership with the Heart and Stroke Foundation involves Alberta communities along our Mainline right-of-way, which heads southeast from Edmonton to the Saskatchewan border. And by training 100 students per school, Nilson and the foundation see high potential for a spinoff effect.
“One woman I know in the Yukon took it upon herself to train her whole community in Whitehorse,” recalls Nilson. “When someone there had a cardiac arrest in the middle of town, 37 people took turns doing chest compressions for 45 minutes. And he’s alive today because of it.”
