World Restart a Heart Day CPR sessions

As part of World Restart a Heart day, the School of Medicine, East Neuk First Responders and Operation Heart Start are offering 15 minute CPR and defibrillator sessions between 1pm and 2pm in three locations:

• School of Medicine Seminar room 1
• Byre Theatre
• Mansfield house (across the road from the Students' Association)

The free sessions are open to all.

Survival of heart attack victims is greatly increased by bystander CPR and defibrillation. In May this year at the Craigtoun parkrun a runner suffered a heart attack and collapsed: CPR was administered by bystanders, a Public Access Defibrillator was used and the victim has since made a full recovery.

The survival rate for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the UK is currently less than 10% while other European countries have survival rates of greater than 50%, due in the main to the lack of bystander CPR and availability of Public Access Defibrillators in the UK. With this in mind, Restart a Heart Day is a designated yearly day of action with the aim to teach vital life-saving CPR skills to as many people as possible.

In 2017 Restart a Heart Day brought people together up and down the country to learn how to save lives. In 2017, they partnered once again with the British Heart Foundation, British Red Cross, St John Ambulance and all UK ambulance services to train an incredible 195,000 young people in life saving CPR; this year their goal is 200,000.

For more information, contact School of Medicine Senior Teaching Technician Henry Rae on [email protected]. Henry is a member of East Neuk First Responders, an independent community resuscitation charity working to improve the survival and outcome of people who suffer life-threatening emergencies in the local area.