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STAMFORD, Conn. - Stamford interventional cardiologist Dr. Thomas Nero has a startling statistic to share. Once a person goes into cardiac arrest, their survival rate falls 10 percent every minute they don’t receive CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).
On Aug. 25, Nero and a committee of health professionals will team up with the city of Stamford to help save those lives with Hands for Life, a health education event that hopes to teach hands-only CPR to 10,000 Fairfield County adults. Held at Chelsea Piers Connecticut, Hands for Life is for ages 16 and over, and participants can register as individuals or a team, said Nero, the group's co-director. The event will be held over the course of 10 hours, with each training wave running 15 minutes.
“One out of four patients do not get CPR when they need it,” Nero said. “If we get 10,000 people together saying this is a good idea, it’s a louder message.”
Hands for Life was started four years ago as an outreach program. Nero and a steering committee went into popular gathering spots in southern Fairfield County, such as Sterling Farms Golf Course, St. Luke's LifeWorks and senior centers in Darien and New Canaan, to spread their message. They were even able to raise money to provide some of those locations with their own defibrillators.
“We decided to put together an event to both train people and to raise public awareness,” Nero said. “We want to change the culture of how people approach CPR, because if someone collapses, the only thing that will hurt them is to not do something.”
For more information or to register for Hands for Life at Chelsea Piers Connecticut on Aug. 25, click here.
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