Rick Malcolm and his wife often find themselves beyond the reach of emergency services: They like to hike, and they know they need to be prepared in the event of a health crisis.
The couple, who live in Concord, have previously received CPR training, but in order to protect themselves and others in remote places, they went in search of a refresher course.
“It will just be something else, another tool to have to help keep everyone safe on the trails,” he said.
Malcom and his wife found the training they needed at the Zoo Health Club in Concord, where the gym offered free hands-only CPR training to members of the public on Friday as part of EMS Week. The sessions, held throughout the state, factored into a friendly competition between the state’s executive councilors to see who could train the most residents in their district.
Executive Councilor John Stephen recently benefited from a prepared bystander: He experienced a cardiac event while jogging last year that he said could have ended his life.
“I am here today only because two people near me knew what to do,” he said. “This is what New Hampshire does best: neighbors stepping up to look out for one another.”
In Concord, five participants took part in the CPR training at the Zoo, led by supervisor Michelle Pard and paramedic Katelyn Johnson.
Mirrors lined the wall of a large open room, where attendees gathered around a rubber CPR dummy. A pop clicked from the dummy’s chest whenever a participant practiced their compressions — when someone performs CPR, they must press past the breastbone to manually massage the heart, which causes the chest to crack.
The instructors emphasized the importance of acting with urgency.
“The quicker you get to CPR, the better the chance a patient has of a great outcome,” Pard said.
Pard and Johnson walked the attendees through the importance of CPR training and detailed the signs signs that resuscitation is necessary.
Attendees huddled in a semi-circle around the gummy as Pard explained step one: checking the person’s pulse and only proceeding if there isn’t one. She placed both hands intertwined at the bottom center of the dummy’s breastbone and pressed down until she heard a pop.
When administering CPR, she told them, they should continue at a pace of 100 to 120 beats per minute. CPR works by circulating the oxygen in a person’s blood stream, which happens manually with every compression.
Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill, whose district includes Concord, said dozens of fire departments, hospitals, churches and small businesses hosted CPR trainings during EMS Week this year.
“District two is geographically the largest in the state, and our communities answered the call in a big way,” she said.
