Medicine students teach life-saving CPR on campus

Students from the School of Medicine have been raising awareness for the Resuscitation Council UK’s ‘Restart a Heart Day’ with CPR demonstrations on campus today.

The students, who set up a stall outside of the Leeds University Union, were using mannequins to teach students and staff how to perform CPR and re-start a heart with a defibrillator. 

There are defibrillators located across campus for immediate emergencies. These can be found over campus, for example in the Great Hall, the Edge and the entrance to the students’ union.

However, when an ambulance is called, the medical team can inform you where the nearest defibrillator is on campus to where you are situated if you are unable to find one. CPR should be given until a defibrillator is obtained. 

The defibrillator, once activated, plays instructions with voice-recorded help. The volunteers advise this should be used until an ambulance arrives.

Navdeep Rana, one of the student volunteers, said that they wanted to educate students and staff on where the defibrillators are located and how to use them.

Sanchini Pattiya, another volunteer, said it was crucial more people learnt how to perform CPR.

“Statistics show that 75% of cardiac arrests happen outside of the hospital and the survival rate of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is 1 in 10.” 

She hopes that raising awareness of how and when to do CPR and use a defibrillator could help to reduce these numbers. 

She told The Gryphon her main advice was “not to be scared to hurt someone or break any bones” and to sing one of the suggested songs whilst doing CPR to get the correct rhythm such as “Baby Shark” from Hey Tenny (the TV show) or “Staying Alive” by Bee Gees. 

She said it was quite likely that you can break someone’s rib during CPR but this means you are doing it correctly as you are “going deep enough to target the heart”. 

She told The Gryphon, that anyone can be a victim of cardiac arrest, even young children but it is more likely in older people.

Vaibhavee Patel, another volunteer at the stall, said “CPR is such an easy skill for people to learn and there are so many people who don’t know how to use it including people our age who have seen in movies and medical dramas but aren’t sure how to do it”. 

She believes that with such poor out-of-hospital survival rates from cardiac arrest “we can do better’’.