WASHINGTON — Just look at it as reading, writing, arithmetic … and lifesaving.
Starting this fall, all students in D.C. public and charter high schools will be required to learn hands-only — or “compression” — CPR before they graduate.
“This is an essential life skill, and we are going to incorporate it into the high school health curriculum,” said D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie, who championed the legislation.
McDuffie, who heads the Judiciary Committee and represents Ward 5, says the council looked at statistics from other communities where similar requirements were already in place and decided making CPR mandatory for D.C. students was “a no-brainer.”
According to the American Heart Association, every hour in the United States, 38 people will have a cardiac arrest event outside a hospital. Nine out of 10 will not survive.
McDuffie says training young people in the skill is important because when bystanders know what to do, CPR can double or triple a cardiac arrest victim’s chances of survival.
D.C. already has a voluntary CPR training program, launched during the last school year for middle and high school students. The expanded mandatory training will begin with the new fiscal year in October.
The classes are expected to be simple; they will teach the basics and last about 20 minutes.
Most will likely be taught by health or physical education teachers, but some schools will have the option of bringing in instructors from the Red Cross, the American Heart Association or the D.C. Fire and EMS Department.
McDuffie says the ultimate goal is to train thousands of young people with a skill needed across the area. “In D.C., there are 3,000 students who graduate from public schools and public charter high schools every year, and to me that essentially amounts to a potential 3,000 lifesavers.”
In Maryland, a CPR training requirement went into effect for high school freshmen last year. Virginia, like D.C., will begin offering mandatory hands-only CPR training this fall.
