There is no doubt: CPR and AEDs save lives

On Feb. 3, Doug Oggeri went inside his Merrick home to rest after shoveling snow. Then he suffered a massive heart attack. Thankfully, his 18-year-old daughter, Colleen, a Calhoun High School senior, had learned cardiopulmonary resuscitation through the Police Athletic League, and using the chest compressions that she had practiced only months earlier, she revived her father.

Now Oggeri will live to see his daughter off on prom night and graduation later this year.

On Jan. 5, Dr. Bruce Decter of Great Neck, who grew up in North Woodmere and graduated from Lawrence High School, was dropping his stepdaughter, Daniella Forman, off at Kennedy Airport when he heard a woman scream. Her husband had suffered an arrhythmia, in which the heart skipped a beat, or a massive heart attack.

The man, from Merrick, was effectively dead, but Decter managed to revive him in three minutes using CPR.

According to the American Heart Association, more than 300,000 Americans suffer “out-of-hospital cardiac arrest” annually, and less than 8 percent of them survive.

According to international studies, there is a 15 percent chance that a cardiac arrest victim’s heart will begin beating again with no CPR. That figure rises to 40 percent with CPR.

With no CPR, the long-term survival rate is 2 percent. With CPR, it doubles to 4 percent. When CPR is combined with use of an automated external defibrillator, or AED, within three minutes of cardiac arrest, there is a 74 percent chance that the heart can be restarted, and the victim’s survival rate soars to 30 percent.

In one recent study, researchers estimated that bystander CPR plus use of an AED in the U.S. and Canada saves 522 lives a year, or more than one life per day.

“This is not a randomized, controlled study, but it describes what is going on in the real world, where people at the scene of a cardiac arrest are saving lives,” said Dr. Myron Weisfeldt, chairman of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the study’s lead investigator.

That is why we encourage anyone and everyone to take an American Red Cross-certified CPR/AED course. And if you’ve had the training in the past, you may want to consider taking a refresher class. Many of the standards for CPR have changed in recent years. Rescue breathing, for example, is no longer recommended, only chest compressions to keep oxygenated blood moving to the brain.

The American Red Cross of Nassau County (nassauredcross.org) offers eight- and five-hour classes in CPR/AED. The eight-hour course teaches a variety of skills, including one- and two-rescuer CPR, use of resuscitation masks and how to respond in special rescue situations such as drowning. The five-hour course reviews the skills taught in the eight-hour class.

The Merrick-based Forever 9/Robbie Levine Foundation also provides CPR/AED training. Robbie Levine of Merrick died at age 9 when he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest after rounding the bases during a Little League practice in 2005. His father, Craig, administered CPR, but was unable to revive him. Since then Craig and his wife, Jill, have worked through their foundation (robbielevinefoundation.org) to raise money to purchase AEDs for schools and youth sports groups across the country.

The group sponsors the annual Robbie’s Run, a 5K run/walk to raise money to purchase AEDs, which starts at Levy-Lakeside Elementary School in Merrick, where Robbie attended school. The event will take place on Sunday, May 22, rain or shine. For more information, call Jill Levine at (516) 379-2868 or email her at rblforever9@optonline.net. Race applications will be posted on the foundation’s website soon.

As the Levines learned so tragically, sudden cardiac arrest can happen to anyone, at any time. Knowing the basics of CPR/AED can save a person’s life.