Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) training provides you with important skills as it teaches you how to save a life in case of an emergency. I participated in a CPR training session and became CPR certified. The Heart-saver courses are designed to prepare people to provide CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) use in a safe, timely, and effective manner. The hands on session gave me a chance to learn how to perform CPR, which is a major component of first responders day-to- day efforts. If more people in our community could learn CPR, there would be many lives saved as first responders may be delayed in arriving and in situations were seconds count or in events where too many people need attention for a single first responder to act, you can also help with your CPR skills to save lives.

It’s the skill no civilian hopes to have to use. If someone needs CPR, it’s about as bad as it can get: their heart is already stopped, it isn’t properly beating and will stop, or they aren’t breathing so even a normally beating heart will stop. One of the EMS trainers told us not to be concerned when we performed the chest pumps and felt crunching under our hands – that’s just the cartilage between the ribs breaking. I’d heard of this, but the next thing he said did shock me. “What do you do if someone’s rib pokes out?” Just keep going.

Even though CPR isn’t accurately portrayed in most movies, mostly to heighten drama, it’s still a pretty drastic process. You essentially are doing the work of a beating heart through layers of skin, muscle, bone, cartilage…and that requires a lot of force, force that necessarily damages some tissues. But if someone isn’t breathing, you really can’t make them worse then they already are. As my dad said when I told him about the training experience, “You can’t kill a dead person.”

Even though, as I said, I really hope I never have to use this training – because if I ever did need to, that person would already be in pretty bad shape – but I’m very glad I got the opportunity to learn. Being prepared to help is part of being a good citizen. This goes beyond just ability to help: every student who came to those sessions was making a commitment to their communities by effectively saying, “I will reach out to my neighbor in need.” It is heartening to me to see that many of my peers came out to learn CPR and be there for the next person in need.

This past weekend, I had the honor of becoming CPR certified. I believe that everyone should have at least a general knowledge of CPR, because you never know if you’ll be in a situation in which someone needs their life to be saved. Every single day we face dangers that can possibly lead to needing CPR— yet simple and easily learned procedures can help prevent this. This knowledge can be invaluable when someone is in medical distress. Knowing these things in a medical emergency can mean the difference between life and death.

I thought that the CPR certification event was very efficient. When I heard that Rose was offering it as an event, I thought that it was one of the most practical ones that were offered. While all of the other events provided different experiences, the CPR training was very functional in its purpose.

I really enjoyed that the training was led by people that participated in CUEMS. It was nice being taught these skills by fellow students, because it helped to make the experience more of a conversation, rather than just being taught the process.

I had been CPR certified in the past and it was nice to get a refresher on the process. I was also able to get feedback from the people leading the class. I liked the fact that they taught us the process, keeping in mind that what we were learning might have a different context when at a college campus. Overall, I thought that the CPR training was a very good experience to have. It helped me to brush up on what I had learned before, and also helped to think of how it could be used in a college setting.

As a Pre-Med, I was always interested in getting my CPR certification. Just having the ability to aid someone in a life or death situation, is such a great gift. When Rose provided the chance for students to acquire their certification, I realized what an amazing opportunity this was. I participated in the session and gained my certification. It was a very valuable experience that I believe everyone should be offered. The EMS staff were very helpful and it inspired me to apply to become a part of their organization in the future. If you haven’t gotten certified, I highly recommend it!