Who Is CPR Certified?
Being a Parent. Being CPR certified. They go Hand in Hand.
You know when you tour a daycare and one of the questions on your list is “Are your staff members CPR, AED and First Aid certified?”
You know when you hire a babysitter to come to your house to take care of your most precious treasure and one of the questions on your list is “Are you CPR, AED and First Aid certified?”
You know when you sign up for soccer lessons or leave your child in Sunday School at church and you confirm with the instructor or teacher “You have your CPR, AED and First Aid certification, right?”
You know when you are researching swimming lesson programs for your soon to be little fish or mermaid and one of the questions on your list is “Are you and/or instructors in your program CPR, AED and First Aid certified?”
I KNOW that you are wanting the caretakers and teachers in your child’s life to be certified in all the ways that could save your child’s life if the situation ever arose.
Now, my question to you is “Are YOU CPR, AED and First Aid certified?”
As parents we have a “Things-To-Do-Before-Baby-Arrives List” a mile long but I want to encourage you to put “Getting my CPR, AED and First Aid certification” on the very top of that list.
The thing you do FIRST when you know you are bringing a baby into your home.
FIRST.
This is why it is the FIRST strategy in The Watching Initiative.
For as long as I can remember the most prominent Water Safety and Drowning Prevention advocates have placed “Being CPR certified” or “Having Emergency Preparedness” LAST on the list of ways to keep our children safe around water.
To say I have NEVER agreed with this would be an understatement.
I believe that this needs to change!!
If we are truly wanting to protect our children around water, in every way possible, those involved in the Water Safety and Drowning Prevention world would be encouraging parents to get their CPR certification, not putting it at the bottom of a list.
So, now let’s talk about what CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) is and what an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) does.
Performing CPR on a person will keep oxygenated air and blood flowing through their body and to their brain and other vital organs to delay tissue death.
An AED is a device that will restart a child’s heart. It delivers an electric shock to the heart and is used in cases of cardiac arrest.
The majority of children who have had a water accident and would be in need of CPR and/or an AED would be due to CARDIAC arrest.
The first thing that I want to talk about is the difference between a “Heart Attack” and “Cardiac Arrest”. The best explanation I found was on the American Heart Association’s website.
“A heart attack occurs when blood flow to the heart is blocked. A heart attack is a “CIRCULATION” problem.”
“Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart malfunctions and stops beating unexpectedly. Cardiac arrest is an “ELECTRICAL” problem.”
Now that we know what these things are and do, I want to share with you the importance of being able to perform CPR as immediately as possible when a child is in cardiac arrest.
The following time frames can be found through a company called CPR Select:
If CPR is started and performed within the first 4 minutes of a child going in to cardiac arrest:
Brain damage is not likely and it doubles or triples the chance of survival.
If CPR is started and performed within the first 4 – 6 minutes of a child going in to cardiac arrest:
Brain damage may occur after resuscitation.
If CPR is started and performed within 6 – 10 minutes of a child going in to cardiac arrest:
Brain damage is likely and the child may suffer ongoing issues after resuscitation.
If CPR is started and performed after 10 minutes of a child going into cardiac arrest:
Brain death is imminent.
So, hypothetically, if your child fell into a water environment and was without air long enough to go into cardiac arrest (20 – 60 seconds), if you don’t know how to perform CPR, how far away is EMS? How many minutes would it take for EMS to arrive and begin CPR?
By being certified, precious minutes or even seconds would be saved and those precious minutes or even seconds could mean the difference between life and death for your child.
Now, I would like to introduce you to Cooper.
Cooper was a 20 month old little boy who was, in his parents words “their vibrant, blond hair, blue eyed force of nature.” Cooper loved the water. He had spent a few days at the lake, in a life jacket, jumping in over and over again. He had no idea that it was the lifejacket that was keeping him safe in the water and allowing him to have so much fun.
Later that week he was at his home, which had a backyard pool. On a Thursday morning, Cooper opened the sliding glass door and he silently slipped out of the house and in to the pool.
He did not understand that the lake water, where he had had so much fun and was safe, was so very different from the pool water, which was fatally dangerous, because in one he wore a life jacket and in the other he did not.
His grandmother told me that when her husband noticed that Cooper was missing, he went directly upstairs because going up the stairs was something that Cooper loved to do. He didn’t think to check the pool first because he thought the sliding door was locked and never thought that Cooper could get it open.
When he didn’t find Cooper upstairs, he came back downstairs and he saw the sliding door was cracked open and through the window he could see Cooper face down in the pool.
After scooping Cooper up out of the pool, EMS was called and arrived quickly as the station was about ¾ mile away. In what would probably be described as being in a state of shock, Cooper’s grandpa began administering CPR.
It has been about 12 years since he had taken a CPR recertification course. Something that now, Cooper’s grandparents would say that they wish they had stayed current on.
Cooper was rushed to the hospital and later that day this family lost their precious little boy to drowning.
Maybe the outcome wouldn’t have been any different if Cooper’s grandpa had been more recently CPR re-certified. Maybe it would have. No one can know that for certain.
But what this family does know and does advocate for is that SECONDS MATTER and that CooPeR (CPR) Saves Lives. Cooper Saves Lives was created to provide CPR classes for parents and other caregivers.
Getting CPR, AED and First Aid certified is not difficult, time consuming or expensive.
You can search online “How to get CPR certified?” and find an option that works best for you but I am going to share with you the certification process through the Red Cross. I have always carried a Red Cross certification so I feel comfortable that I can confidently speak to this specific training course.
There are 3 ways to be certified now.
Online – You can register for about $40 to take the CPR, AED and First Aid course on your own time. Due to there being no classroom time, there is no hands-on opportunity to practice the skills and have a trained instructor working with you.
Blended Learning – You can register for about $80 (this is in my area and the cost may differ in your area) to take the CPR, AED and First Aid course where you do part of the learning online and then part of the learning in a classroom. This course is about 2 ½ hours of classroom time and you will be able to do hands-on work with a trained instructor working with you.
In-Person Learning – You can register for about $120 (this is in my area and the cost may differ in your area) to take the CPR, AED and First Aid course where you do the ENTIRE course in person, under the direction of a trained instructor. This course is about 4 hours and you will be able to do all the work HANDS ON. For me, this is the way that I learn best and the learning option I have always chosen.
There is nothing better than having an instructor to teach you, demonstrate skills, WATCH you carefully as you practice the skills
In each case, a test is administered and must be passed to receive certification.
Upon successful completion, a valid 2 year certification for Adult and Pediatric CPR, AED and First Aid is issued.
If you take 1 day of 1 weekend, you can be fully trained to be able to perform CPR, use an AED and provide First Aid.
You can be certified to be a child’s lifesaver if the situation ever asked for you to do that.
70% of adults in the United States have NO CPR training or say that they knowledge has lapsed and they would not feel confident performing CPR.
Please don’t be an adult in this statistic.
70%. That is a HUGE number.
Be a parent, grandparent, babysitter, aunt, uncle….you see where I am going with this right??
Please go and get certified. Do it for your children. Do it in honor of Cooper.
If you have been certified in the past but it has now expired, maybe it is time to recertify.
You know that old saying “If you don’t use it, you lose it?” Well, that is not something that you want to be the case if you ever needed to use this skill in the case of an emergency.
Being CPR, AED and First Aid certified is something that I fully support and teach, even outside of the realm of water safety and drowning prevention. It is such an important thing to know and be prepared to do but especially in the case of a water accident.
As Cooper’s family has said “Knowledge and action are power and together we can make a difference.”
Yes, I agree. So, let’s get to it.
CPR saves lives.