Two Colonie boys learned about the power of CPR the hard way, and now they’re advocating that it becomes mandatory for their peers to learn the life-saving method.
Joey Mendrick, 12, and Casey Stashenko, 14, stood before the Legislative Office Building in Albany on Tuesday, April 16, and urged state lawmakers to pass the “CPR in Schools” bill. They were joined by members of the American Heart Association, state officials, other survivors of cardiac arrest and parents who had lost children to cardiac arrest.
The bill calls for every high school student in the state to learn CPR before graduation. Sponsored by Long Island lawmakers Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg, D-Long Beach, and Sen. Charles Fuschillo, R-Merrick, the legislation was passed in the Senate last year but did not see a vote in the Assembly.
“Every child is a potential lifesaver through this simple and inexpensive instruction. The entities opposed to this bill need to rethink their priorities,” Weisenberg said at the event. “You can’t get a better ‘thank you’ than to see a person who isn’t breathing, breathe.”
For Stashenko, his father may not be alive today if it weren’t for CPR. While his father was suffering from a heart attack in May 2012, Stashenko watched as his mother began performing CPR and realized she was doing it incorrectly. The Sand Creek Middle School student had learned the Hands-Only CPR method in school and immediately started using that technique on his father.
“CPR was easy to learn in the classroom, and I used that teaching a few months later to save my father’s life,” Stashenko said.
Mendrick, on the other hand, was struck in the chest by a baseball during a Little League game on April 16, 2012. After going into cardiac arrest, Brian Curran, an adult on the field, performed CPR and saved his life. The American Heart Association celebrated his new “birthday” at the event with cupcakes.
“At my game, I was surrounded by adults that knew what to do, but what if it was pick-up game with just kids present? CPR being taught in school is something fun, easy to learn and can quickly become a real game changer,” Mendrick said.
Some, however, weren’t as lucky, though. Karen Acompora of Northport lost her 14-year-old son in 2000 when he was struck in the chest while playing lacrosse. In his honor, she founded the Louis J. Acompora Memorial Foundation to ensure the placement of AEDs, or automated external defibrillator, in public places.
“Training the next generation of life savers who know how to respond in the event of a cardiac emergency should be a top priority in our school districts. With faster response times to a cardiac emergency, we actually have the ability to reduce the number of sudden cardiac deaths in our nation,” she said.
According to the American Heart Association, about 300,000 sudden cardiac arrests occur in the United States annually. The survival rate is below 8 percent. Hands-Only CPR has become the preferred method since many people were afraid to do mouth-to-mouth CPR. Bob Elling, a Colonie paramedic, said use of CPR can double or triple the survival rate.
“There’s only so many people I can save as a paramedic … but we can train people to save people,” he said.