TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — There are now around 250 more people who can save a life in the Big Bend thanks to Leon County's Press the Chest CPR class.
Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation is a simple skill that could mean the difference between life and death.
"We know that for every minute you're in cardiac arrest before we arrive on scene, that your survivability decreases by about 10 percent for every minute you're in cardiac arrest without CPR," explains Leon County EMS Chief Chad Abrams.
Those are minutes survivor Brittany Roos knows are critical.
"Who would have thought at the age of 24 that I would be fighting for my life?" she asks, looking back on the time she needed CPR. She and her family visited a bar in New York to watch an FSU game. Shortly after they arrived, what her parents thought was a seizure turned out to be cardiac arrest.
"They said see if there's a doctor in the restaurant and they didn't bring back one doctor, they brought back two doctors and they were both eye doctors, and neither one of them knew each other, and they got down on their hands and knees, performed CPR and brought my pulse back and those two guys are the ones that saved my life," Roos recalls.
Leon County's free annual Press the chest class aims to puts more life-savers in every room by preparing attendees with hands on training on skills like "how they can do CPR on an adult, a child, as well as an infant, as well as what they can do to help someone who has an obstructed airway or who is choking," Adams said. "And they're also going to teach them how to use an automated external defibrillator, which would shock someone that's in cardiac and hopefully restore their heart back to a normal rhythm."
Mozell Hawkins made the drive from Jefferson County to the Tucker Center just to learn these skills and be ready to protect the people she loves the most.
"You never know when something's gonna happen," Hawkins says, "and I've also got grandkids that I'm interested in, you know, in case something happens with them."
Hawkins is now one of more than 1,000 people Leon County EMS tries to train in CPR each year to step in while medical help is on the way.
"We absolutely know that someone needs to intervene in those instances in the moment when it happens and this just one way to expose that to the public of how much of a difference they can make," Adams said.
To learn about additional CPR classes from Leon County click here.
