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LA County Launches Online Training To Teach Lifesaving Skills
Brenda Hennessy spoke of the importance of learning CPR. Her son Cash Hennessy (right) was saved by CPR when he had a cardiac arrest while he was playing football. He was 13.
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Jackie Fortiér/LAist
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Topline:
Do you know how to apply a tourniquet, use a defibrillator or help someone who is overdosing? You'll be able to learn online and in-person. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is launching the Community Readiness Champions Initiative to train residents to save lives.
What can you learn? People can watch online trainings or sign up for in-person sessions to learn hands-only CPR (no breathing into the mouth), how to administer the opioid overdose reversal medication naloxone, how to use a defibrillator, how to recognize substance abuse disorders and how to stop bleeding from a deep cut or gunshot wound.
Why is it important? The U.S. continues to see a staggering number of opioid-related deaths, driven in large part by the spread of synthetic opioids such as illicit fentanyl.
In L.A. County, seven to nine people die each day from overdoses.
Naloxone, which comes in a nasal spray and an injectable drug, can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose and restore a person's breathing. A person's heart can stop during an overdose, so hands-only CPR is often used with naloxone to try to save the person.
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