Now, THAT's a Program!

June 01, 2011 13:00 ET

Canadian Youth Learning CPR in the Tens of Thousands-and Saving Lives!

School's out for the summer and over 250,000 more youth have been trained in CPR this year!

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - June 1, 2011) -

Editors Note: There is a photo and a video associated with this press release.

Students across Canada are celebrating the end of the school year. Also cause to celebrate is the fact that 250,000 more high school students have been trained in CPR this year. They will bring lifesaving skills to their communities this summer. The Advanced Coronary Treatment (ACT) Foundation is the organization that is setting up in-house CPR programs for high schools right across Canada.

Many lives are being saved and youth are confidently putting their skills to use in the face of emergencies.

Ninteen-year-old York University student Samantha Hunt is just one example. While relaxing at home after a week of demanding class work, she heard a loud crashing sound in the next room and heard her roommate Taylor yelling, "Call 911, Dylan collapsed!"

Trying to remain calm, Samantha ran to the next room and found Dylan, her roommate's boyfriend, unconscious on the floor. Samantha called 911 and a few seconds later Dylan's breathing stopped, leading to cardiac arrest. The 911 operator asked Samantha if she knew CPR. She did and quickly began performing CPR on Dylan's lifeless body.

"It was an automatic thing; I knew I had to do it (CPR). I didn't really think," remembers Samantha.

Samantha had learnt the lifesaving skill from her physical education teacher through the ACT High School CPR Program when she was in Grade 9 at East Elgin Secondary School in London, Ontario.

Dylan survived his cardiac arrest. "I really can't put it into words," Dylan says, as he talks about Samantha's actions that day. "She saved my life. If it wasn't for Samantha knowing CPR, I could have been dead."

Samantha urges everyone to learn CPR. "You hope you will never have to use it but if you do, you're going to be so happy that you know what to do. Things like this don't just happen to young people, but to older people as well," she says.

Call to action:

- Ask your teen if they learned CPR in school this year. If not, find out how you can bring the program to your school.

- Check ACT's list of schools to see if your school has a CPR program.

- Learn CPR!

To learn more visit www.actfoundation.ca and "like" us on Facebook.

ABOUT THE ACT FOUNDATION

The ACT Foundation is a national charitable organization dedicated to establishing CPR as a mandatory program in every Canadian high school. ACT's health partners who are committed to bringing the program to all high schools across Canada include AstraZeneca Canada, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada, Pfizer Canada and sanofi-aventis. The Foundation has already established the CPR program in more than 1,500 high schools and more than 1.8 million youth across Canada have been trained to date.

To view the photo associated with this press release, please visit the following link: http://www.marketwire.com/library/20110601-ACT_Foundation_800.jpg

To view the video associated with this press release, please visit the following link: http://youtu.be/VrvRlyu2cPY