Rice to host Houston's 18th annual CPR mass training Sept.

Rice News, Volume 12, Number 4

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News Staff

Rice students, faculty and staff members who want to learn how to save lives through Houston’s cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) mass training this year will have to go no farther than Autry Court/Fox Gymnasium.

Rice University is hosting the 18th annual CPR/Automated External Defibrillator Mass Training Sept. 21.

“Rice is well-known for its academics, but community service is important to us too,” said Mark Scheid, assistant to the president. “We’re interested in real-world solutions to real-world problems.”

One such real-world problem is cardiovascular disease, which has been the No. 1 killer in the United States every year since 1900 except 1918 (the year of an influenza epidemic). Each year about 250,000 people who are not hospitalized die of coronary heart disease. CPR provided immediately to a victim of cardiac arrest can more than double the patient’s chances of going home from the hospital after treatment.

A former Rice University employee learned the importance of CPR firsthand this year. Ann Badders, who was a secretary in the Office of Sponsored Research from 1987 to 1989, collapsed at the dinner table on New Year’s Day. One of her daughters called 9-1-1 and performed CPR with instructions given by phone while the paramedics were en route. If cardiac-arrest victims receive no treatment, brain damage can start to occur in just four to six minutes after the heart stops pumping blood. The daughter’s quick action saved her mother’s life; Badders was taken to the hospital and released after a few weeks.

During the mass training at Rice, participants will be taught how to perform adult CPR (mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing and chest compressions) and how to use an automated external defibrillator (AED), which gives an electric shock to the heart to stop an abnormal rhythm. Mannequins will be used for hands-on experience. Participants also will be taught the warning signs of heart attack and cardiac arrest.

More than 1,000 people are expected for this year’s mass training, according to Noah Reiter, director of Rice’s Emergency Medical Services and a member of the Houston CPR Task Force, a group of local agencies organizing the event.

Participants can enroll in a three-hour training session that will be available in English and Spanish during four shifts throughout the day:

• 8 a.m. -11 a.m.
• 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
• noon-3 p.m.
• 2 p.m.-5 p.m.

Registration will take place in Fox Gym, but the training will be conducted in both Fox Gym and Autry Court.

The fee is $20, but students and senior citizens (55 and older) can enroll for $15.
To preregister for the training, call (713) 222-CARE.