By Steven Mayer
The Bakersfield Californian
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — It was mid-morning Monday at the Ming Avenue branch of Valley Strong Credit Union in southwest Bakersfield.
As customers completed transactions with tellers, not far away, 18-year-old Areli Juarez could be seen performing CPR on a silent figure near the windows.
Of course, the silent figure was a CPR mannequin, all part of a concerted effort by the American Heart Association, Dignity Health and Valley Strong to expand CPR skills across the Bakersfield community.
“I came here to open a bank account for the first time,” Juarez said. “But when I saw this, I was like, hmm, I wonder what they’re doing.
The young Del Oro High School grad is planning to attend Bakersfield College in August to study nursing.
“This is an important thing to do because it (cardiac arrest) could happen to anyone and you have got to be prepared, mentally prepared and physically prepared,” she said.
The drop-in CPR information sessions and demonstrations were hosted at two Valley Strong branches Monday, the Ming Branch and the Panama Lane location.
“Today we’re here educating the community about handling CPR,” said Memorial Hospital Stroke Coordinator Delia Soliz at the Ming branch.
“It’s imperative,” she said, “that we get as many community members as possible educated and aware of what to do in an emergency, to save people’s lives.”
Soliz said it’s unfortunate that many in the community are not prepared to act when someone collapses and is unresponsive, even when it’s someone they love.
You can’t always wait for an ambulance to arrive, she said.
“That could be minutes, valuable minutes, that are lost.”
Steve Matejka, chief operating officer and executive vice president of the credit union, said the importance of knowing CPR struck close to home in the Valley Strong family when the adult daughter of a colleague suddenly went into cardiac arrest during a family fishing trip.
In that critical instant, the employee’s son sprang into action, performing CPR and ultimately helping to save his sister’s life.
“CPR isn’t just a skill, it’s a lifeline,” Matejka said. “You may never have been in a situation where it was needed, but the reality is that most cardiac arrests happen at home, affecting the people closest to us. Knowing how to respond could mean saving the life of a loved one — a parent, a sibling, a friend.”
Cardiac arrest is an electrical malfunction in the heart that stops the flow of blood to the brain, lungs and other vital organs.
According to the American Heart Association, more than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur each year in the United States. For a person in cardiac arrest, survival depends on immediately receiving CPR.
Unfortunately, about 90% of people who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests die, according to the Heart Association.
“A lot of people are afraid to take action if they don’t know what to do,” said Jared Tharp, an RN and structural heart program coordinator at Dignity Health who was also part of the team at Valley Strong on Monday.
“If you think about it, it’s just two steps,” Tharp said. “Call 911 and start compressions.”
As customers came by to give it a try, Soliz taught them to interlock their hands and put them right on the hard bone, the breastbone.
It’s important to stay within 100 to 120 compressions per minute — which is faster than some might think — and many people find it’s helpful to match the compressions to the tempo of a song they’re familiar with, such as the 1970s disco classic “Stayin’ Alive,” “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé, and many others.
Spotify has a user playlist featuring songs that have a beat in sync with the recommended CPR chest compression rate.
“The nice thing about this CPR that we’re spreading is that’s it’s called hands-only CPR, although some people refer to it as sidewalk CPR,” said Valery Diaz, manager of the cardiac program at Dignity.
“You call 911 and then you go straight to the victim and you check to see that they’re not awake, they’re not breathing,” she said. “You just put your hands on the center of their chest right on the breast bone, and you just start cooking.”
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