FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:    Captain Dave Wheaton, Lee County Public Safety/EMS
                (941) 335-1661

FORT MYERS, Fla. (April 25, 2000) – What would you do if someone you love suffered a heart attack? Hopefully you would know how to perform CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).

To increase those odds, Lee County Emergency Medical Services, The American Heart Association, Lee Memorial Health System and Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center are sponsoring CPR Day 2001 this Saturday (April 28) at Edison Community College, 8099 College Parkway, in Gresham Hall (easiest access is by using the College Parkway entrance to campus). Anyone interested in learning CPR is invited to sign up.

The cost is FREE!

This is the second annual event and this year’s goal is to teach CPR to 1,000 people!

The life-saving techniques of CPR are simple to learn and will prepare you for cardiac emergencies that can happen anytime, anywhere, to anyone. It will take about two hours, you will receive a participation card, and who knows...you might one day save the life of a loved one.

The sessions will run from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and a new session will begin every hour, on the hour. If you would like to participate, just call 1-877-AHA-4CPR and they will register you for one of the sessions. If the line is busy and you are having trouble getting through, walk-ins will be accepted Saturday.

Coronary heart disease causes 500,000 deaths a year and is the single leading cause of death in America today. Sudden cardiac death occurs about 700 times per day in the United States.

Early CPR and rapid defibrillation combined with early advanced care can result in long-term survival rates as high as 40 percent. The value of early CPR by bystanders is that it can buy time until EMS personnel equipped with a defibrillator arrive.