YOU can help to save lives by learning CPR. Restart a Heart day is now in it’s tenth year and we want you to share this page with children, colleagues, family, and friends to spread the word.
Restart a Heart Day is an annual training event that occurs on or around the 16th October. This event usually sees the collaborative effort of hundreds of clinicians, teachers and volunteers working together to train members of the public how to perform CardioPulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). This is sometimes referred to as Basic Life Support (BLS) or performing Chest Compressions.
In 2019 (pre COVID) West Midlands Ambulance Service managed to train over 67,000 children in one day across the region. Over the years our staff and volunteer Community First Responders have trained thousands of people in life-saving skills however 2020/21 presented some extraordinary circumstances and as a result we took our efforts online.
Restart a Heart Day 2023 is nearly upon us and we will endeavour to engage with even more people to spread the message that CPR can save lives. We hope that you can share this message with the children, colleagues, family, and friends. Representatives of West Midlands Ambulance will be in the Community providing an invaluable awareness of how important this life saving skill can be.
Paramedic Alice Teaches CPR & Use of a Defibrillator
Alice Jones is a Paramedic based at our Willenhall hub. She was also a finalist in the Miss England 2022 competition and, as part of her talent entry, put together this fantastic video to increase awareness about CPR and defibrillation.
Alice said: “With the ambulance service attending roughly 68,000 cardiac arrests in a year, only ever half of them have resuscitation attempts by a bystander. You and so many others can learn how to perform effective chest compressions. It has been proven that early CPR and early defibrillation by an AED can help save lives. So with the help of Baby Shark and ABBA to keep your rhythm, you can help save lives.”
How to do CPR
Here at West Midlands Ambulance Service, we want everyone to learn this life-saving skill so you will know what to do if someone collapses with a sudden cardiac arrest.
- When someone has a cardiac arrest, they collapse and become unresponsive. They either stop breathing entirely, or they might take gasping or infrequent breaths.
- If you see someone unconscious or breathing abnormally, ring 999 immediately. You will speak to an Ambulance call handler, who will help you confirm if the person is in cardiac arrest and guide you through doing CPR.
- Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) describes the process of compressing the chest to squeeze the heart and pump blood around the body:
- First you must place one hand on top of the other on the centre of the chest and push hard and fast on the chest to help pump blood around the person’s body. You should keep a steady rhythm of about 120 compressions every minute.
The benefits of improving bystander CardioPulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) rates are evidenced around the world where the highest bystander CPR rates are directly linked to the highest survival rates from sudden cardiac arrest. Over 68,000 people suffer cardiac arrests outside of hospital in the UK every year. If this happens in front of a bystander who starts CPR immediately before the arrival of the ambulance, the patient’s chances of survival doubles.
Little Lifesavers
It’s not just grown ups and teenagers who should learn about CPR! Our “Little Life Savers” campaign is aimed at younger children and is a fantastic educational activity to teach youngsters not only about the ambulance service but the important skills they need to help save a life.
Register Your Defibrillator with The Circuit
If you’ve got a defibrillator in your workplace, school or local community, register it with us so that we know it’s available to help save lives!
We’re working in partnership with British Heart Foundation to develop ‘The Circuit’ – the national defibrillator network. This is a ground-breaking national initiative that will give cardiac arrest victims the best chance of survival by linking a national network of defibrillators to every Ambulance Service in the UK.
he Circuit replaces our previous way of logging defibrillators on our 999 system. We need all defibrillator guardians across the West Midlands to register their defibrillators with us so that we know where it is in an emergency. It’s quick and easy to do.
We want to assure you that we are here to support you and would love to hear about your Restart a Heart day, please share your experiences with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, using @officialWMAS