By Monica Rodriquez
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
POMONA, Calif. — David Connard of Pomona was out for a walk Thursday morning when he came up on a group of volunteers, nursing personnel and paramedics outside of Cardenas Market on South Garey Avenue.
Long-time Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center volunteer and soon-to-be registered nurse Hilary Gaw asked if she could show him how to perform hands-only cardiopulmonary resuscitation in five minutes.
Before long Connard was compressing the chest of a mannequin while Gaw and others praised him for his good work.
“CPR is always good to know,” Connard said afterwards.
All over Los Angeles County groups that included nurses, firefighters, paramedics and future health care providers went out into their communities Thursday and took part in Sidewalk CPR activities.
Outside businesses, hospitals, fire stations, shopping centers and in civic centers groups showed members of the public how to perform hands-only cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Sidewalk CPR is part of “a statewide campaign to try to get as many citizens to at least do compressions and take away the fear” of performing CPR, said Dawn Trilles, a nurse and emergency department educator at the hospital.
Many people are afraid of performing the combination CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, she said.
“The whole coordination of breathing and compressing confuses people,” Trilles said.
The scientific community has found that if someone performs chest compressions without mouth to mouth breathing a patient will still benefit.
CPR is critical to assisting someone who is unconscious and not breathing.
A person’s heart may have stopped beating as a result of a heart attack, a stroke or a near drowning, Trilles said.
Performed correctly, compressions alone will keep blood flowing to the heart and the brain increasing a patient’s chances of survival, she said.
Francisca Gandara of Pomona was among those who took a few minutes to watch and then try her hand at CPR.
Gandara said stopping to learn how to do CPR was worthwhile and it’s something that will help her assist her family members in an emergency.
David Connard had first aid and CPR training about 30 years ago.
“I took a class in the 1980s and then I see all these good people and I stopped,” he said. “I haven’t had a refresher course. I should go in and get it.”
Councilman Freddie Rodriguez, who in his professional life is an emergency medical technician, was happy to see the group providing the quick lessons.
Taking a few minutes to learn how to perform hands only CPR can make an enormous difference in an emergency.
“You could save a life,” he said. “How many people can say that?”
The hospital set up public education booths in its main lobby, outside the Claremont Chamber of Commerce in Claremont and outside the main entrance to Cardenas Market in southern Pomona.
Marco Robles, public affairs director for the Cardenas Markets, said when the hospital approached him about doing the demonstrations outside the chain’s South Garey Avenue store he agreed.
“They were able to reach that community in a bilingual format,” Robles said.
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