A primary school is bucking a trend by teaching children vital life-saving skills.
Saxmundham Primary School teamed up with Saxmundham Health to give its pupils CPR knowledge as well as defibrillator skills.
The move comes in response to statistics showing just an 8% survival rate from cardiac arrests at home in the UK, compared to 25% in Norway, where all children learn these skills.
Two classes of 20 children received instruction from practice paramedic Jo Pemberton and Dr John Havard.
The children practised on both the school's blow-up plastic patient models and a sophisticated Resus model provided by Saxmundham Health.
Under the guidance of Ms Pemberton, the children were able to see blood pumping around the model as they performed chest compressions.
Dr John Havard praise the children's engagement with the session from their excitement to work on the models to understanding the seriousness of someone having a cardiac arrest.
The practice issued sobering information about cardiac arrest in the home.
This included:
- Immediate initiation of CPR can double or quadruple survival from out-hospital cardiac arrest.
- Defibrillation within 3–5 minutes of collapse can produce survival rates up to 50–70%.
- Each minute of delay reduces the probability of survival to hospital discharge by 10%.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here