AVALON –– Avalon Rescue Squad hosted free CPR and Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) training, open to the public, at the firehouse here Oct. 9.
Avalon Elementary School teachers attended a private class Oct. 10 and both classes were trained in the 2006 guidelines for adult, child and infant CPR and defibrillation to receive the American Heart Association’s Heartsaver accreditation.
The training was geared towards people with minimal or no experience to enable them to use an AED device and resuscitation techniques in advance of first responders.
Instructor Jonathan Schwartz, volunteer firefighter and rescue squad employee, was in the unique situation of instructing his former Avalon Elementary School teachers.
Teacher Michael Ludgate of Court House, with the Special Services School District, said he attended the training for “humanitarian reasons.”
Marcy Heller and Heather Creamer of Marmora, teachers’ aids at Trinity Nursery School, said they had had no previous training.
Debbie Ware, Spanish teacher at Avalon Elementary School, said she had previous training but methods changed since she had last learned.
Current standards require five intervals of 30 chest compressions and two breathes, revised from a former standard of intervals of 15 chest compressions and one breath, Schwartz said.
Contact Truluck at (609) 886-8600 ext. 24 or at: ltruluck @cmcherald.com.
