Boys Save Infant with CPR: What Are the Steps; Where Can You Take CPR Classes?
Two boys saved an infant's life with CPR in Marietta, Georgia, a heroic feat that shows how vital it is for everyone to take CPR classes or learn the CPR steps for themselves.
Ethan Wilson, 10, and Rocky Hurt, 9, were playing football in their backyard last Monday when they heard their neighbor screaming for help. The neighbor, Susanna Rohm, noticed something amiss when her12-week-old son, Isiah, went limp and stopped breathing.
She yelled for neighbors to call 911, and splashed water on her baby's face in a panic. Ethan and Rocky immediately swooped into the house after hearing Rohm's cries and showed her how to use CPR.
"I told her to push on the baby's chest five to 10 times with only two fingers, tilt back the baby's head, plug the baby's nose and breathe into the baby's mouth," Rocky told the NBC news affiliate WXIA in Atlanta.
Rohm told WXIA that the boys were so assured in their CPR emergency response that she followed the instructions immediately.
In just a few seconds, little Isiah started bawling- a sign that the baby was breathing.
Paramedics arrived shortly, and according to the Atlanta TV station WAGA, Isiah spent two night in the hospital for monitoring. The baby was diagnosed with sleep apnea, a common condition that disrupts breathing during sleep.
"If the little boy hadn't shown me how to do the compressions right here... My baby would not be alive right now. And I am incredibly grateful," said Rohm to WAGA.
Rohm reportedly had never met the boys before, even though they live in the same Atlanta suburb.
Ethan and Rocky said they had not taken any CPR classes- they learned the CPR steps from reading posters in the cafeteria of their elementary school.
"We just wanted to know just in case it happened but we never knew we would have to do it in real life," said Ethan to WXIA.
The incident stresses how important it is to learn the CPR steps as a lifesaving skill- especially for the parents of young children.
CPR, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, is an emergency procedure that uses rapid chest compressions to restore breathing when someone is unresponsive.
Almost 92 percent of cardiac arrest victims die before reaching a hospital, but emergency CPR can double or triple their chance of survival if someone around them can perform the technique immediately.
If a victim is unconscious and not breathing normally, the first step is to call 911. Someone who knows the CPR steps should then begin a series of 30 rapid chest compressions, followed by quick breaths delivered into the victim's mouth. The compressions and breaths should keep going in a series until EMTs arrive.
You can take CPR certification classes through the American Heart Association or the American Red Cross, or take free CPR classes with many other local institutions near you, like the FDNY in New York.
Watch this video for a primer on how to perform CPR: