By 16 News Now | Posted: Thu 4:37 PM, Sep 05, 2019 | Updated: Thu 4:38 PM, Sep 05, 2019
Around 1,800 eighth-graders from South Bend and Mishawaka schools participated in the largest CPR mass training event in the Midwest.
Students were trained by local emergency medical, fire, police and medical personnel. They also heard from community leaders and area survivors of sudden cardiac arrest.
Afterwards, the students received their own CPR training kit, and they were encouraged to help teach their friends and family.
"We buy the kits, each student gets to take this kit home and teach them," St. Joseph Regional Medical Center EMS coordinator Karry Hershberger said. "Seventy percent of cardiac arrests happen in the home. Therefore, they need to teach their mom, their dad, their brother, sister, aunt, uncle, neighbor."
The hope is that the increase in CPR knowledge will increase rates of bystander intervention and survival.