Emergency training by the numbers

If the Guinness World Book of Records wasn’t made aware of last Thursday’s CPR training at Cheney High School, they should have been.

School officials in conjunction with West Plains firefighters conducted an ambitious session to train all 1,400-plus Blackhawk students in what to do should someone have a medical emergency, including how to stop bleeding, at an all-day “Save a Life Day” held in the CHS main gym Sept. 5. Cheney Fire Department firefighter and event organizer Drew Ableman said 24 firefighters from Cheney, Airway Heights and Fairchild Air Force Base departments along with Spokane County Fire Districts 3 and 10 took part.

“The main thing I want you to know from today is to push down hard,” Ableman told the students at the end of the first session. Students groups of approximately 150 were hustled through in hour-long blocks, receiving 5-10 minutes of instruction along with some video training and most importantly, learning hands-on techniques for CPR and injury treatment.

The idea for the training came from CHS nurse Allison Hahn, who began providing basic CPR to high school juniors over a year and a half ago. Now in her eighth year at the school, Hahn said she was amazed during her first classes at the lack of knowledge among the students, not just on CPR but the basics of emergency response.

“I was shocked during that presentation that students didn’t know how to call 911,” she said.

Hahn added it was no fault of the students, but they simply had no exposure to such incidents or training. With the need to be able to provide emergency medical attention in schools rising, Hahn attended some conferences and training in how to teach such procedures.

She originally started with high school staff members, but after talking with Principal Troy Heuett, decided to branch out to students as well. This past summer, Hahn said she contacted Cheney Battalion Chief Ken Jenkins about the possibilities of doing something with local fire personnel.

Johnson, who has since become Fire Chief at District 10, helped out by getting his Cheney Boy Scout troop involved, and they were able to provide 90 tourniquets and first aid kits, enough for one in each high school classroom along with several for the cafeteria, gyms, library and nurses’ room. Hahn felt, however, that more was needed.

“We need to make sure we are teaching and not just handing out supplies,” she said.

Having gone through the “Stop the Bleed” instructor course, Hahn and Heuett reached out to the Cheney Fire Department late this summer to provide something more. Johnson passed the training coordination to Ableman before he left for District 10.

Ableman told students of the importance of being able to render some kind of assistance in an emergency, noting that it takes about five minutes for a person to “bleed out” and about 10 minutes for a person to begin to suffer brain damage if deprived of blood and oxygen. The average response time for emergency responders on the West Plains, he added, is roughly 10 minutes.

For CHS senior Mason Allen, Thursday’s second session was a chance for him to not only gain some medical knowledge, but also look at a possible career.

“I’d like to do something medical,” he said. “I’ve never had CPR training. This is awesome.”

Cheney fire fighter Lt. Jeff Anderson said it was the largest CPR instruction they had ever participated in, and that hopefully it would have an effect, not only on the students but also the community.

“We are putting 1,000 kids back into the West Plains community to not only make a difference but maybe help save a life,” he said.

Hahn agreed, and added they would like to make the training an annual event.

“We want to equip our kids before they head off into the world,” she said. “Hopefully, we can keep doing that.”

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].