Canadian youth learning CPR in high school

OTTAWA, November 29, 2005 — If Detroit Red Wings defenseman Jiri Fischer had suffered his cardiac arrest in a Canadian hockey arena he might have been saved by a high school student, thanks to the tens of thousands of teens trained in CPR each year through the ACT High School CPR Program.

Picture this: A man collapses at a hockey game or other public area. A teenage girl slips through the crowd of helpless adults gathered around the man, calmly saying, “I know CPR.” She orders someone to call 911 and performs CPR the way she learned in high school. Moments later someone brings a defibrillator. A life is saved.

Research shows that citizen-CPR can increase survival for victims of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest by almost fourfold. The Advanced Coronary Treatment (ACT) Foundation is empowering youth to do just that. The Foundation is helping high schools across Canada insert CPR in the curriculum thus equipping youth with the knowledge and skills to apply CPR to victims in hockey arenas, shopping malls…even their own homes.

About the ACT Foundation
The ACT Foundation is a national, non-profit organization dedicated to establishing CPR as a mandatory program in every Canadian high school. ACT spearheads community support to donate mannequins and materials to schools. Teachers then teach the program to their students. The Foundation has implemented the ACT High School CPR program in over 700 high schools across Canada and over 700,000 students have already been trained through this award-winning initiative. ACT’s corporate health partners are: AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada, Pfizer Canada and sanofi-aventis. For more information visit: www.actfoundation.ca