Learning CPR Made Easy

The vast majority of people who go into sudden cardiac arrest in the United States don't survive. The Early Show medical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay says the American Heart Association has created an easy, affordable kit that teaches people how to perform life-saving cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

Senay calls the 5 percent sudden-cardiac-arrest survival rate "a shame, because, of the witnessed cardiac arrests, only a third of those people actually receive CPR. (Of about) 300 million Americans, only 9 million are trained in CPR."

Hence, the new heart association kit, which is available for less than $30.

"The goal," Senay says, "is to really get this information out there, so everybody can learn how to do CPR, make it easier for people to learn it by getting these kits into schools, into homes, into community centers, to really blast that information out there."

The kit could replace the three-hour classes many people take in hospitals.

"This would certainly make it a lot easier," Senay says, "and the goal is to get 20 million people trained in CPR through these kits.

"They've actually studied it, and they've found that using the (half-dummy) 'Mini-Annie,' the DVD, and the booklet (which make up the kit), that people learn just as much as they do in the three-hour class."

Senay says it helps people to have the "Mini-Annie" so they can refresh their skills when needed.

"You can refer back to the DVD, back to the booklet," she says. "So, it's not something you do one moment in time, go away and then never have the opportunity to try again."

Senay then

First and foremost, if you see someone who has become unresponsive, call 911.

"Then," Senay says, "you want to do what they call the ABC's of CPR, meaning airway, breathing and circulation. You're really going to become the lungs and heart for someone who can't breathe or circulate blood on their own."

Kits can be purchased by visiting CPRAnytime.org or calling 1-877-242-4277.