First AMR World CPR Challenge Aims Big for May 22

American Medical Response is hosting its first-ever World CPR Challenge on May 22 and is inviting all agencies, responders and citizens to get involved, in an attempt to train as many people as possible in one day in compression-only CPR.

Mike Taigman of AMR in Ventura County, Calif. said the idea originated during a discussion in February. Doug Petrick, General Manager from Monterey and Santa Barbara, wondered how many people they could train across the planet if they got all of their U.S. and international operations involved.

“By morning we had all but three on board, and we added those by noon,” he said. Then they were able to add their operations in Trinidad and India. “That’s how it became the World CPR Challenge,” he said.

The events will vary at each location.

“What we’ve done is asked each operation to be creative and organize their own event,” Taigman said. Staff have been talking each week to share their ideas, and plans run the gamut from partnering with hospitals, fire departments and high schools, to hosting mass events at stadiums and sports events, to training at shopping malls. In Ventura County, for example, Taigman said they worked with the Oaks Mall to get stores to provide a discount that day to anyone wearing a CPR training wrist band.

“It’s been a blast,” he said.

Taigman said the planning for the event has come together very quickly. “It’s been one of the easier things to get people to rally around, and compression-only CPR is so easy to teach,” he said. “People can learn to do it well in a few minutes.”

Anyone interested in following the event is asked to check its Facebook page at facebook.com/AMRCPRCommunity.

Taigman said AMR hasn’t determined a specific goal for how many people they hope to train on May 22. He said it’s hard to gauge how many people might participate at locations such as malls and stadiums, but they plan to track and release updates throughout the day. “We’re going to do counts in every location,” he said.

Taigman said the discussion has sparked some AMR personnel to do even more CPR events that won’t get tallied with the big one on May 22. Recently in Santa Barbara, Calif., he said, responders pulled up at an intersection, put a manikin on the grass, and started pulling bystanders in to participate. “It was like a flash-mob CPR thing,” Taigman said. “People started running over and it was a mix of homeless people next to business executives.”

Anyone and everyone is encouraged to get involved with the May 22 event. “Any fire department, any ambulance service, police department – everybody is welcome, it’s not brand specific,” Taigman said.

AMR spokesman Ron Cunningham echoed Taigman’s invitation. “…Communities, schools, even office buildings,” he said. “We would welcome anyone who’d want to participate in any way whatsoever.”

“We have 140 operations doing some sort of events,” he said, and they’re still getting lists in, indicating there will be a few hundred events. The U.S. operations exist in 40 states and D.C.

To find the closest event, visit AMR’s website at AMR.net. Cunningham said interested parties can either join up with one of those, or speak to their closest operation about incorporating another event.

Cunningham said there was no incentive provided for the AMR operations or anyone else to get involved. “It’s really about participating and being a part of the community,” he said.

AMR is looking toward hosting the event yearly during EMS Week. “This is like a trial run,” Cunningham said. “We expect it to be big, but then we’ll look at it afterward and see how we can make it even better.”