On August 19, 2007 the Toronto Blue Jays squared off against the
Baltimore Orioles on the field at the Rogers Centre. But the home runs
against blood pressure and cardiac arrest were the winning hits on the
Blue Jays’ Blood Pressure Monitoring and CPR Training Day.
Presented by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and Toronto Fire Services
and supported by Brystol-Myers Squibb, the mass event educated fans
about their own heart health and taught them the life-saving core
skills of CPR.
Toronto Fire Services volunteer recruits took the blood pressure of
excited fans while the game was in full-swing. Afterwards, fans who
bought specially priced tickets descended on the field for interactive
training with the Heart&StrokeCPR Anytime™ Family & Friends™
training kit, a self-directed program designed to teach the core skills
of CPR in just 22 minutes. “Taking 20 minutes to learn CPR is a short
investment of time that could save the life of someone close to you,”
says Heart and Stroke Foundation spokesperson Mike Nemeth, a Toronto
paramedic. A cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops
beating and the person is no longer breathing. About 80 per cent of
cardiac arrests happen in the home and less than 5% of people who have
a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital survive. However, the odds of
survival for a victim of cardiac arrest are almost four times greater
if someone performs CPR on them right away. “The majority of people who
experience a cardiac arrest die because help does not arrive in time,”
Nemeth says. “The more people trained in CPR, the greater the chance of
keeping victims alive until an ambulance arrives. That’s why
the Heart and Stroke Foundation believes it is especially important for
the families and caregivers of people living with heart disease, or at
high risk of developing it, get trained in CPR. The Heart&StrokeCPR Anytime™ Family & Friends™ kit is a useful tool that can be used to train people anywhere. The kit includes:
a 22-minute instructional DVD
an inflatable
mini-mannequin with a hard face and chest (which includes an
adult/child compression clicker that provides audible ‘click’ when
compressions are done correctly)
a user-friendly instruction manual – with easy-to-understand text and reinforcing photographs
The Heart&Stroke CPR Anytime™Family & Friends™ kit is $35.00 CDN plus shipping, handling, and taxes.
Last Updated ( Friday, 02 November 2007 )
Did you know...
Death from sudden cardiac
arrest is not inevitable. If more people knew CPR, more people would reach the
hospital alive and more lives could be saved.
On August 19, 2007 the Toronto Blue Jays squared off against the
Baltimore Orioles on the field at the Rogers Centre. But the home runs
against blood pressure and cardiac arrest were the winning hits on the
Blue Jays’ Blood Pressure Monitoring and CPR Training Day.