LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — The American Heart Association and Lexington Fire Department are teaming up during National CPR and AED Awareness Week and Month.
AHA honored the department with the Moosnick Service Award while providing an update on the #LEXSaveLives Campaign at Fire Station Two.
"It's just plain and simple, we're saving people's lives," Mayor Linda Gorton said.
LFD AND AHA are raising awareness about a life-saving intervention.
"It is so important for us to continue this work and encourage people to learn hands-only CPR," Andrea Ooten said.
Ooten, executive director of the American Heart Association for central and eastern Kentucky, points out that seven in ten people in the U.S. say they don't feel comfortable to act in the face of a cardiac emergency.
"As a result less, than half of the people who need bystander CPR whenever they have a cardiac event, don't receive it," Ooten noted.
In Fayette County, bystander CPR Response rates are up, now at eighteen percent versus seven percent prior to this AHA and LFD partnership.
"Translate that into real numbers, we know that that is saving lives," Lexington Fire Chief Jason Wells said.
Lexington Fire Captain Mike Kinney emailed Wells prior to the #LEXSaveLives initiative enterprising the idea to put a CPR manikin in each Lexington Fire station.
"The moments that are there in the early CPR are doubling even tripling people's out of hospital survival rates, so we do need the community involved in it," Kinney said.
The #LEXSaveLives movement is challenging the Fayette County community inviting citizens to stop by any of the 24 fire stations in Lexington to learn hands-only CPR.
"Ultimately, we're trying to teach a very simple skill to as many people as we can humanly teach and so that takes a village," Wells said.
The Lexington Fire Department and the American Heart Association will be featured at the Lexington Legends game on June 12. Hands-Only CPR demonstrations will be available around the concourse.
