If you're not a trained medical professional, it can be hard to find time to learn how to perform CPR properly. However, if you or your loved ones are in this situation and you happen to find yourself with some time to kill at a major international airport -- say, the next time you’re heading to the Caribbean -- look into the airport’s CPR kiosks.
Every year there are over 359,000 cardiac arrests that take place and nearly 20 percent of these incidents (roughly 70,000) occur outside of medical facilities, according to the AHA. That’s in places like parks, business center, malls, and, yes, airports too.
The American Heart Association and the Anthem Foundation initiated a response to this statistic by creating a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) kiosk at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in 2013.
They have designed the kiosk to educate and provide an instructive experience to individuals who are interested in learning CPR. The hands-on course takes roughly five minutes and is comprised of a short a “how-to” video followed by a practice session on a rubber mannequin.
To ensure procedural effectiveness, instructors watch and provide feedback on correct hand placement, proper depth and rate of chest compressions while the individuals practice on the dummy.
One of the tips that the instructors advise is for individuals to “push hard and fast in the center of the subject’s chest to the beat of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.”
So far, the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport has trained more than 25,000 people in proper CPR procedure and they are continuing to educate airport communities everyday. Since the kiosk took off in 2013, the program expanded to an additional 5 airports in March including: Chicago O’Hare, Indianapolis, Las Vegas’ McCarran, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, and Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall.
So instead of spending an extra $15 on a magazine plastered with a photo of Nick Jonas seductively staring into space, check out the kiosk and learn a skill that could end up saving someone’s life. If you still have time after that, snag the mag and indulge. No one’s judging.
Aptly named, Enclothed Cognition is the official Medelita blog for medical professionals interested in topics relevant to a discerning and inquisitive audience. Medelita was founded by a licensed clinician who felt strongly about the connection between focus, poise and appearance.
