Paulding County Community Awareness Project in Middle Schools

It all started in our 8th grade P.E. class. As everyone diligently practices the sports that were assigned to the class; Volleyball, one girl suddenly falls to the floor. With about seventy confused 8th graders in the gym, along with two coaches, the gym goes into complete chaos. Not only are the kids unsure of what to do, the coaches try to decipher what they should do in order to help the student lying on the floor. The nurse is finally called to the gym, but time was still wasted even more as it took the nurse a while to actually get to the gym and provide the student with assistance, as the nurse’s office was a substantial distance away from the gym.
Fast forward to 10th grade, this horrific incident still dwelled within our minds, and through our involvement in Health Occupations Students of America(HOSA), we began to form an idea to prevent incidents like this from happening again. Though the project took a year of perfection, we were able to come up with a Community Awareness project where we teach 8th grade students around our county the basic procedures of CPR. Most cardiac arrest cases occur when there is not a medical expert on the seen, and just like our classmate, the victim is more than likely surrounded by bystanders. Simply teaching the basic steps of CPR could truly save lives, so why not start teaching students as early as in the 8th grade? We believe that anyone is capable of learning CPR, meaning that anyone could save a life.
We ask for your help in spreading the message of our project, so that we could inform people the importance in learning CPR. Cardiac arrest takes the lives of about 325,000 victims each year, and with your help of making our voice heard, we can surely decrease this number.