Life saved leads to well-attended CPR training course

Mark Mernitz took count of a large class Wednesday.

As part of the community engagement and wellness division for Mayo Clinic Health System, he was brought in to teach 22 people at Hobbs sports center in Altoona how to perform compression-only CPR.

Mernitz said it’s only been recently that compression-only CPR has been the adopted method for helping save someone whose heart has stopped beating.

"That creates a blood pressure in the body of your victim and hopefully it'll keep the patient alive and be successful, until advanced care gets there," Mernitz said to WEAU 13 News on Wednesday. “These modifications have been a real asset to success. We've gone from 3-4% of save rates with simple CPR to 30-40% save rates and in doing this new concept of compression-only CPR.”

Mernitz said the best practice for compression-only CPR is to lock your hands and then do 100 to 120 compressions per each 2-minute interval.

According to the American Heart Association, less than one-third of out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest victims receive CPR from a by-stander – making Wednesday's class a potential life-saver for all who attended.

The class was organized along with the Eau Claire Mighty Docs hockey team – an organization which recently saved one of its own who suffered a heart attack on the ice.

"There's a certain number that you really want to get to. I'm not sure that we're there yet, and that's part of the reason why we're doing this tonight,” Donn Dexter, M.D., a member of the Mighty Docs and a consultant in the neurology department of Mayo Clinic Health System, said to WEAU 13 News on Wednesday. “On our team, there were enough people that said 'I don't know how to do this. I don't feel comfortable. I want to learn it.' So, I think that we have work to do still."

Jeff Fleischman has been with the Mighty Docs for four years. He was not on the ice in Altoona when his teammate suffered a nearly-fatal heart attack, but knows first-hand the value of using CPR.

"My father-in-law had a heart attack one night and I CPRed him until the paramedics arrived,” he said to WEAU 13 News on Wednesday, looking back on the incident which happened five years ago. “You just react. You don’t even really think about it.

“We called 911. They said ‘Does anybody know CPR?’ We already had him down and I started the CPR. When it's over you start thinking about it, but while it's happening, you’re just kind of following instructions and remember your training and you just do it.”

Fleischman was surprised by the high turnout of the class Wednesday night, but thought it was held on a perfect night.

"Trying to get away from the wife or the girlfriend for something like this, I mean ... you're saving hearts, but it's still a heart holiday - Valentine's Day," he said.