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CPR Training Sought For EKU Dorm Aides
When Stephanie Kremer lay dying in her room at Eastern Kentucky University in April, no one nearby knew how to help.
Her mother, Cindy Frohlich of Louisville, said Stephanie, 18, had seasonal asthma but had never experienced such a severe attack until she woke up shortly after 3:30 a.m. on April 8, unable to breathe. Kremer died of acute respiratory failure.
When two other EKU students died last month -- one from an apparent drug overdose, the other from unknown causes -- Frohlich decided to act.
She has asked Eastern to require that resident assistants be trained in how to perform CPR.
It's not common for colleges to make CPR training a requirement for RAs, though many provide training for those who want to learn, said Alan Hargrave, president of the Columbus, Ohio-based Association of College and University Housing Officers International.
James Conneely, EKU's vice president for student affairs, said he did not know of any Kentucky colleges where RAs are trained in CPR.
Eastern has not formally responded to Frohlich's request.
Frohlich said she also may ask the legislature for a measure that would require the training.
Hargrave, an administrator at Ball State University in Indiana, isn't sure it's a good idea. He said RAs -- the students who help enforce university policies and resolve conflicts in residence halls -- already have huge responsibilities. He isn't sure they can, or should, be asked to take on lifesaving duties.
That's why the University of Kentucky discussed CPR training some years ago but decided not to provide it to RAs, said Tony Ralph, associate director of residence life at UK.
Some colleges don't require the training because of the cost or worries about liability. Hargrave said most states have Good Samaritan laws that would protect RAs if something went wrong, but there is another concern -- the potential transmission of diseases such as HIV.
"RAs have parents, too," he said. "Do they want their son or daughter put at risk, even though the pursuit is very noble?"
However, such training might prove valuable in cases of sudden cardiac arrest, said David Rodgers, a Charleston, W.Va., hospital administrator who volunteers for the American Heart Association.
There are 300,000 cases of sudden cardiac arrest in the United States each year, many of them in seemingly healthy people, Rodgers said.
"For those people, CPR with 911 is critical to their survival," Rodgers said. "In general, the better we have a population trained to deal with events (such as) sudden cardiac arrests, the better off everyone is."
Stephanie Kremer knew CPR, and so does everyone else in her family, Frohlich said.
She was majoring in forensic science and hoped to become a forensic anthropologist, her mother said. She was a big fan of the CSI television shows and "loved gruesome stuff."
EKU administrators note that the university offers a variety of CPR classes that are open to any student, and some of the university's majors require CPR certification.
Each year, every member of the university's Public Safety Department receives annual training in CPR and automatic defibrillators.
Three campus police cruisers are equipped with defibrillators, and there is a Madison County EMS/fire station next to the campus. Pattie A. Clay Hospital also is nearby.
Frohlich does not contend that CPR training would necessarily have saved her daughter. Nor does she criticize EKU or the response from rescue workers, who arrived 6 minutes after they were called.
But she said she doesn't want another parent, or another group of students, to go through what she has endured.
"I can just visualize the nightmare and the horror these girls on that floor live with every day," she said. "I don't want anybody to feel that helpless again."
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