Halftime show teachs hands-only CPR

It wasn't your average half-time show at the Algoma High School boys basketball game last week as spectators watched teenagers press on mannequins to the tune of the popular disco tune "Staying Alive."

The 11 students of Algoma High School Teacher Erin Ballone's health careers class were showing more than 500 spectators how to perform hands-only cardiopulmonary resuscitation( CPR) in a show billed as "Get Pumped for the Wolves."More than 70 percent of Americans feel helpless in how to react during a cardiac emergency, according to Ballone, who teaches family and consumer science classes..

"How people react in the first minutes after someone has a heart attack can be instrumental in saving someone's life," she said.

Throughout both the junior varsity and varsity games, both adults and children were invited to the Algoma Wellness Center for a 10-minute training session.   Using special upper body mannequins provided by the American Heart Association, the students asked each person to answer five questions about what to do in a cardiac emergency.

Then they trained them on the mannequins to use their hands to press on the chest using 100 presses per minute.  The beat of "Staying Alive" offers the rhythm needed, according to Courtney Guilette, one of the students in the class.

Even small children can be trained in hands-only CPR by using a teddy bear, Ballone said.

Hands-only CPR involves no mouth-to-mouth contact. The goal is to keep someone's heart pumping until medical personnel can arrive. At the end of the 10 minutes, the participants filled out a second set of questions, demonstrating that they knew what to do if they saw someone experiencing a cardiac emergency and received a certificate of participation.

More than 130 people were trained throughout the two basketball games, Ballone said.

The training was part of Live Algoma, which seeks to improve the health of the entire Algoma community, Ballone said.   The high school received a grant from the American Heart Association and Bellin Health for the program.

Karen Jewitt of the American Heart Association was at the event to assist the students in the training. Algoma High School is one of five high schools that participated in a pilot program of the association.

The hands-only CPR program was also offered at the Dec. 8 girls basketball varsity and junior varsity games.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press Gazette: Halftime show teachs hands-only CPR