Collegiate EMS Week will teach CPR, first aid

By Sylvia Butanda
The Daily Texan

According to a 2010 comparison conducted by the Austin/Travis County Emergency Medical Services, only 34 percent of cardiac arrest patients received bystander CPR in the Austin area compared to Seattle, where more than 60 percent of patients received bystander CPR.

Pierr Bojaxhi, spokesman for Longhorn EMS, said the students will participate for the first time in the Annual National Collegiate EMS Week, which is in its 12th year. The UT group will participate by hosting first aid training events for students on campus on Monday and Tuesday.

"We have contributed to solving this issue by directly teaching over 700 individuals bystander CPR with most of them being either students or faculty in the campus area," Bojaxhi said.

Monday’s event will promote National CPR Day by focusing on bystander CPR and compression-only training where students will be taught what to do in case someone falls down or passes out.

"We want to increase campus safety and increase awareness of EMS services in general," Bojaxhi said.

Longhorn EMS has teamed up for this event with Take Heart Austin, a branch of a national Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survival Initiative and Take 10, a 10-minute training session that teaches compression-only CPR.

Yang Liu, Community Education captain of Longhorn EMS, said the most important thing for students to learn is the compression training.

"CPR is one of those skills you never hope to use, but when you have to, you do it properly and know the steps to take," Liu said. "It’s really all about muscle memory, just practicing over and over again until you get good at it."

Tuesday’s event will concentrate on first aid classes and training, such as bandaging for bleeding control.

Longhorn EMS is a fairly new branch of Student Government that is looking forward to working with the University, Liu said.

The program is part of the National Collegiate EMS foundation, made up of all the collegiate EMS services in the country.

"We want to inform the students about life-changing procedures and encourage everyone to know about them," said Kirk Meyers, Longhorn EMS’ director of operations. "If you’re ever in a situation where you have to help a person, you’ll use the skills you learned."

Monday’s CPR training will be held in front of Jester from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Tuesday’s first aid classes will be hosted in CMA A3.112 from 5:00 to 5:45 p.m. and from 6:00-6:45 p.m.