By Niko Balkaran
Students leaned over CPR mannequins Thursday at Newburgh Free Academy’s Career and Technical Education Center, practicing chest compressions and learning what to do in the minutes before emergency responders arrive.
In a building where students train in automotive technology, welding and other trades, school officials are making emergency response another skill students can carry into the real world.
Nearly 200 students were expected to receive CPR, automated external defibrillator, first aid and Stop the Bleed training by New Windsor EMS, with teachers also participating alongside students, according to NFA Co-Principal Matteo Doddo.
“Hopefully accidents won’t happen, but we’re better prepared,” Doddo said.
Doddo has seen firsthand how those skills can save a life. His wife survived two cardiac arrests, he shared, including one that occurred in a school building, where another teacher immediately began chest compressions before someone used an AED.
“On a personal level, I’m just so excited people are getting it because it can save one life,” Doddo said.
More than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests are assessed by emergency medical services each year in the United States, with 90% being fatal, according to the American Heart Association. Immediate CPR can double or triple a person’s chances of survival after cardiac arrest, according to the AHA.
During Thursday’s session, students practiced recognizing when someone needs CPR, checking for responsiveness and performing chest compressions. They also learned how to use an AED, including how to place its pads, clearing the person before a shock and following the device’s prompts.
“It’s all life-saving intervention,” said Jennifer De Martin, a New Windsor EMT leading the training. “They should be able to stop a bleed of a significant injury, call 911 and have intel enough to be able to say what’s going on and identify signs of heart attack, stroke, emergencies, CPR.”
Students also practiced Stop the Bleed techniques, shifting the focus from a cardiac emergency to injuries where severe blood loss can quickly become life-threatening.
“CPR is more medical. Stop the Bleed is trauma,” De Martin said. “Stop the Bleed is there for, especially in a trade school like this type of a setting, if there’s an injury that they could bleed out quickly, they have now the tools to be able to identify it and intervene.”
Severe bleeding can become fatal in three to five minutes, according to data from Stop the Bleed Coalition, an organization licensed by the Department of Defense to expand bleeding-control education and preparedness.
That type of preparation is particularly important for students who may be working with tools and equipment in a hands-on setting for the first time, according to Sahr Bundor, an automotive technology teacher.
“We’re in a dangerous environment,” Bundor said. “The automotive industry and any of our industries here in this building are very dangerous.”
However, having students trained alongside teachers meant more people could know how to respond if an injury occured, Bundor continued.
“It’s great to have this in the background, just in case something were to happen,” Bundor said. “There’s more than one person in the room that has the ability to help save lives.”
Bundor, who is in his 16th year of teaching, said that he initially thought students might not be interested but saw them balance lighter moments during the training with an understanding of the seriousness of what they were learning.
“I’ve seen them kind of have some fun and then laugh, but also you see them taking the severity into it,” he said, adding that hearing stories from the New Windsor team helped students understand the importance of the training.
Thursday’s training filled in gaps in what he would have known to do during an emergency, according to Alex, a student in the electricity course. He said that he had some knowledge but would not have known as much. One of the most important things he said he learned was how to perform compressions and help someone until emergency responders arrive.
Students who completed the course will receive CPR cards valid for two years.
The emergency response course is one part of a broader safety effort at the new CTE building. Every student also began OSHA 10 training at the start of the school year, which students are completing online before working with machinery and other equipment, according to Doddo. He added that he hoped the emergency training would continue to reach other students not included in the initial sessions.
He said that he hopes after the training students are “not only feeling capable, empowered to know that if God forbid something were to happen” but also “can react to it until the EMTs come” and “be confident, say ‘no, I can do this,’ even under stress and under pressure.”