Buffalo, NY (WBEN) Three months after Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest on the field vs. Cincinnati, the Bills are teaming up with the American Heart Association on a series of programs to increase CPR training. The AHA says more interest in CPR training has been the silver lining in Hamlin's incident.
Jason Stulb of the American Heart Association says this will be a multi-year collaboration aimed at educating Western New York on CPR awareness and hands only CPR. "We'll be doing that through a multitude of different ways. We'll be placing resources in the community, we'll be holding large scale, training events to educate, we'll be doing some public awareness campaigns, we'll be having some execution on game day and training camp," says Stuld in an effort to put CPR on the forefront of the community's mind.
Stuld says there is a silver lining after the cardiac episodes of both Hamlin and Bills co-owner Kim Pegula. "The silver lining has been the increased interest in learning CPR across the community, realizing that this is a life saving skill that people need in their lives," notes Stuld. He says 70% of cardiac arrests are happening in someone's private residence and the chances of survival is drastically increased if CPR is administered quickly. "Our study showed that only 40% of the general public is apt to administer CPR due to either a lack of education, or an apprehension of they're not certified. So if we can remove those barriers and educate everybody, we want to increase that percentage of people that are apt to jump in, in case of an emergency," says Stuldb.
Ron Reccuia of Pegula Sports and Entertainment says a couple of large scale events will take place in June. "June 3 at Highmark stadium, there'll be an event where we will do training for hands only CPR. And also June 10, at Johnny B Wiley center in the city, where we'll be doing likewise," says Raccuia. Tickets are free but limited. Register HERE.
Raccuia agrees interest in CPR has been off the charts since January. "The awareness nationwide has been multiple times what it was before Damar's incident in January. People are aware of it, people are out there getting trained, which is wonderful. And we want to be a big part of that, not just for this upcoming events that I mentioned, but for years to come," adds Raccuia.
CPR on field saved Hamlin's life in January, and this week Hamlin was cleared to return to action.
