The Rotary Club of Portola has joined with Eastern Plumas Health Care once more, this time to provide CPR and First Aid training to Portola High School seniors. Rotary has a student group that meets at lunchtime at the high school, according to Josie Bastian. That’s where she first heard about the training. She and eight other seniors took part in the four hour course, held at EPHC’s Education Center.
The CPR course was the brainchild of Rotary’s Rachelle Ramelli, who contacted the hospital with the idea. Steve Waldeck, EPHC’s Director of Ambulance Services, agreed to teach the class. He admitted to being a bit concerned that the students might not want to take the class seriously. Instead, he found that they were “very bright, professional, and motivated.” The class involved two hours of lecture and two hours of hands on practice with CPR mannequins. Waldeck also taught the students how to treat choking in infants, children, and adults.
Waldeck went on to extol the virtues of CPR preparation. “It typically takes emergency services 5-10 minutes to respond to a call. But, the brain starts dying after only four minutes” he said. “If someone on the scene is able to initiate CPR, the patient’s chances of survival go up tremendously. It’s usually bystanders on the scene who save the victim’s life,” adding that when he and his crew shows up, they use a defibrillator to shock the heart back into a safe rhythm. But, “if no CPR has been done prior to arrival, the odds of having a shockable rhythm is small.” Portola should feel lucky that these students were motivated enough to take the training. Who knows when they may be called to use what they’ve learned to save a life.
Waldeck said a new set of Life Support Training Courses (CPR, ACLS, and PALS) are set to begin in the new year. These are open, for a small fee, to community members and also to health care professionals. In addition, EPHC will provide courses upon request to community businesses and organizations. Interested groups or individuals should call Regina Martinez at 832-6510 and she will find or create a course for you. “We are pleased to extend this opportunity to the community,” said Martinez, who works with Waldeck to organize the training sessions.