CPR training to be offered to all Cardiff University students to save more lives.
A pilot is underway and if successful will be rolled out across the organization.
Just one in 20 people in Wales survive cardiac arrest – one of the worst rates in Europe.
And if all universities in Wales offered CPR training, up to 130,000 people would learn the lifesaving skills needed to revive someone’s heart.
- Life saving skills to be taught in all schools
- Rejected request for mandatory CPR instruction
Former sports instructor John Rawlins, 64, was revived after suffering cardiac arrest.
In December 2020, he was found leaning against a wall at his gym after a 50-minute session on an exercise bike.
“First of all, [a man] thought I was meditating, then he noticed I was turning blue,” John said.
He was helped by two gym members and a staff member, who used a defibrillator and gave John CPR before the ambulance arrived.
John woke up five weeks later in the intensive care unit at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.
He said he owes “everything” to the quick response of those around him.
“The more people can do CPR, the more people feel confident, the better chance people have of surviving and getting through it with good results,” he said.
Medical student Elliot Phillips, 22, is leading the project. He said: “The perfect audience to learn these life-saving skills.
“It’s an opportunity to address the poor survival rate in Wales.”
Students from the University’s Faculty of Journalism, Media and Culture are taking part in the pilot project.
Student Phoebe Reddin said: “If someone had collapsed in front of me before today, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to know what I was going to do wouldn’t make the situation worse.
“Knowing the basics could literally help save someone’s life,” she said.
The aim is to offer the training to all new Cardiff University students from September.
dr Len Noakes, chairman of Save a Life Cymru, said targeting students could make a big difference.
“Eighty percent of cardiac arrests happen at home,” said Dr. noakes
“These students are going to bring those skills home with them (and when) they’re out in the community, they’re not going to step back and say, ‘I don’t know what to do,’ they’re going to go right in.”
The Welsh Government announced in March 2021 that schools in Wales will have to teach lifesaving skills and first aid under Wales’ new curriculum, after previously rejecting those calls.
The Students Save Lives program is believed to be the first in the world to use medical students to teach life-saving skills across a university.
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