County EMS to offer free CPR instruction

By DAVID J. COEHRS

Enterprise Staff Writer

During his trip to the hospital after suffering a heart attack, Fulton County Coroner Dr. Harry Murtiff posed to himself a frightening question:

What if someone in his condition went into cardiac arrest while waiting for EMS service, and no one present knew how to administer CPR?

Dr. Murtiff and Assistant EMS Director Rod Cheney hope to rectify that situation with free CPR training classes on Saturday, Oct. 10. Between 9 a.m. and noon, volunteers will instruct on both CPR techniques and the use of automated defibrillators.

The one-time event will be held at all Fulton County fire stations and at the LifeFlight hangar at the county airport. The training sessions will use equipment provided by the fire stations; if demand is great, additional equipment may be provided by the county's hospitals.

The EMS program will sponsor the training, although a source of funding has not been determined. Training will cost up to $10 per individual.

"We're going to look at everything at this point to see what's available to us," Cheney said.

Teaching residents CPR is crucial because the county's survival rate from cardiac arrest is dismal, he said. One reason for that is a lack of training among those at the scene.

"There's a time when that person is lying there without any cardiac resuscitation efforts being done. Nobody is opting to start the resuscitation efforts or they're not properly trained," Cheney said.

Dr. Murtiff suffered his heart attack about eight weeks ago while standing on grass at the football practice field at Wauseon High School. He managed to walk to his nearby home, where he laid on his garage floor while his wife called for assistance.

She is trained in CPR, but during his ordeal Dr. Murtiff contemplated what could happen is she wasn't and he went in cardiac arrest before help arrived.

"If you have bystander CRP provided after cardiac arrest, you have about a 70 percent chance of surviving," he said. "It has been well-verified that compressions-only CPR will give you valuable time until the rescue squad gets there."

By offering a free CPR program to citizens, Dr. Murtiff hopes to train at least one person in every county household in CPR. The basic compressions-only technique is not certified but can buy a victim precious time until EMTs arrive.

"The major deterrent for people doing CPR is they didn't want to put their mouths on others and they were afraid of doing something wrong. The new basic CPR has to do with compression only," Dr. Murtiff said. "I have read medical articles that pretty much demonstrated the need."

He cited "New CPR and Resuscitation" by the American Heart Association, which said compressing the chest provides circulation of residual oxygen in the victim's lungs. Without the procedure, many suffer from the oxygen deprivation and experience irreparable damage.

"With about 30 to 40 percent of people that go into cardiac arrest nothing is done because people don't know what to do," Dr. Murtiff said. "I'd like to cut down my work as a coroner to salvage as many people as we can."

In addition to EMS locations around the county, Dr. Murtiff and Cheney hope to offer basic CPR training during the Fulton County Fair. Dr. Murtiff said visitors would be encouraged to participate at an on-site EMS office. The training would take about 20 minutes.