Save a life – learn CPR.
Alicia Bravo is an emergency medicine nurse here at Hennepin Healthcare. Healthy and athletic, Alicia was training for a triathlon swimming across a lake, her dad and sister boating alongside.
Suddenly, Alicia stopped cold and mouthed the word ‘help’. Still unresponsive after being thrown a flotation device, her sister dove in and brought her to the boat. Her father began CPR all the way to the dock. Continuing CPR, along with Alicia’s husband, the EMTs arrived and took over from there. They continued CPR with a device called LUCAS, which administers chest compressions. Ironically, the LUCAS device was purchased with money raised from a fundraiser race the previous year of which Alicia was a part of.
Alicia had suffered cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest, not a heart attack, can occur in someone who may or may not have been diagnosed with heart disease. It is often fatal if immediate action isn’t taken. Each year in the United States, more than 350,000 cardiac arrests occur outside of a hospital setting.
Together with the American Heart Association and Medtronic, a CPR kiosk resides in Hennepin Healthcare, prominently available in the Red Building at the skyway level. The first in Minnesota and 26th in the nation, this kiosk is available to employees and the public to learn hands-only CPR. Someday you could save a life. Someday you may need your life to be saved.
So get the word out. Challenge your departments. Tell your families, tell your friends. Tell your schools and business relationships. It doesn’t take long. It’s hands-on and guides you to administer compressions fast and hard.
As February is American Heart Month, please take a few minutes to get CPR hands-only trained for free, right here on our campus. As a runner and an emergency room nurse, Alicia is passionate about health. But as a survivor of cardiac arrest because of CPR, she is here today as an American Heart Association CPR champion and wants everyone to check out the kiosk.
