Staff from a Belfast healthcare training academy are hosting free events to teach CPR to the public in a bid to get more people learning the life-saving skill.
Paragon Healthcare Academy are aiming to teach CPR to 250 people in Northern Ireland this year. It comes as figures from earlier this year show that less than 1 in 10 people survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest here.
Every minute without CPR and defibrillation reduces the chance of survival by up to 10%.
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David Fenton from Paragon Healthcare Academy said a main reason for these worrying statistics is a lack of knowledge from the public about how to perform CPR in Northern Ireland. In countries where the skill is widely known, such as Scandinavian countries, the chance of survival for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests is 40% or above.
As a result, David and the team at Paragon are on a mission to teach the life-saving skill to more people here. They're running free events where the public can learn CPR in a matter of minutes.
"For the last while I've been doing training for healthcare professionals who need their yearly training. I've realised the lack of training and understanding around this skill," David explained.
"It's not a sort of skill people feel comfortable doing and a lot of people feel a bit too afraid to try it outside of a work setting, where they don't have the support they need. I thought if this is how healthcare professionals feel, how do the general public feel?
"I did some research and found a lot of the public would be too afraid to help in an emergency. I really understand that, but the survival statics for surviving a cardiac arrest in this country are shocking compared to some other places around the world."
Each year in Northern Ireland, 1,500 people have a sudden cardiac arrest outside of a hospital setting.
David is hoping by running small events where they train the public in CPR, they can help save lives.
He said: "What keeps us going is the fact the rates for knowing CPR remain so low here, and the fact it's much better in other countries. I don't see why one day we can't get to that stage, and I'd like to be part of getting us there.
"I hope nobody will ever need to do CPR on somebody, but if even one person's life is saved from these lessons then I'll be happy."
Paragon Healthcare Academy's next event will be on Saturday, August 20, at the Kennedy Centre in West Belfast between 12-5pm. Anyone can come by for the free lesson, which will take no longer than 10 minutes.
David added: "It just takes a couple of minutes. We'll talk people through the key bits of theory you need to know, you'll get a quick demonstration, then do 30 seconds of CPR on a mannequin. As long as you can do that properly, you'll get a little certificate and a congratulations and that's you done.
"On the day, people will learn about something called the chain of survival. There's four steps to it, it's basically about knowing when and how to give CPR.
"They'll learn about how to recognise someone in cardiac arrest, then will learn about giving early and effective CPR, early defibrillation with an AED, then progress on to when the ambulance takes the person on. It's a really simple skill to learn."
To find out more about Paragon Healthcare Academy's events and courses you can visit their website here.
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