By Jamie Shuster

Each year, almost 360,000 people suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the United States. Research shows that hands-only CPR can triple survival rates during these sudden cardiac arrest events.

Earlier this month, an individual in one of our Midland’s area offices passed out suddenly. One of our Public Health registered nurses, Latasha Lee, quickly assessed the person and realized the individual had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. Latasha immediately called for help while her fellow Public Health registered nurse, Charice Jones, began performing CPR on the individual. EMS soon arrived and transported the individual to a local hospital.

This is just one extraordinary example of the many ways that our highly-skilled nursing staff impacts the lives of South Carolinians every day. Thanks to the quick thinking and CPR efforts by Latasha and Charice, the person survived and has even returned to one of our offices since the event.

I encourage everyone to take a moment to watch the American Heart Association video above to learn how to perform hands-only CPR and share with your friends. Research shows that even a brief training video like this helps people learn how to perform CPR more effectively, which can ultimately save more lives.