The American Heart Association will hold events throughout the Mississippi Gulf Coast this week in its effort to teach 12,0000 people how to do hands-only CPR.
Tiffany Guttierrez inflates a small plastic torso that is part of a kit the American Heart Association uses to teach a life-saving technique called hands-only CPR. Guttierrez is the association’s regional director on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She explains that hands-only CPR actually has two steps: the first is to call 9-1-1. The second is to push hard and fast on the center of the chest until paramedics arrive.
"What we like to say is, you just push fast and hard until the ambulance gets there, and then they will take over and do the rest," she says. "And it's actually life-saving. Ninety percent of people who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests don't survive. CPR, especially if it's performed immediately, can double or triple a cardiac arrest victim's chance of survival."
So, how fast do you push? A heart association video offers a useful musical tip: "It's important to push at a rate of at least 100 beats per minute which is about the same tempo as the song, 'Stayin' Alive.'"
The heart association will hold 60-second hands-only CPR training at Planet Fitness gyms on the coast Monday evening; at Edgewater Mall in Biloxi on Tuesday; and in downtown Gulfport on Wednesday.
