Healthcare and emergency professionals team up to teach heart health to Perry students | News

PERRY TOWNSHIP, OH (WLIO) – No age is too young to start learning about heart health. Lima Memorial and Perry Township Fire and Rescue teamed up for the event “Listen to Your Heart” to teach kids in first through fourth grade at Perry Elementary how to take care of theirs, and be prepared for emergencies. 

From radiologists to firefighters, many professionals came to talk to kids at Perry Elementary School about preventing the world’s leading cause of death, heart disease.

“There are some things that kids that age can do to help protect themselves from heart disease. We’re really focusing today on eating healthy and moving more,” said Brian Scheid, the Director of Cardiopulmonary Services for Lima Memorial Health System. 

Volunteers at the event also prepared kids to help someone who’s having a cardiac emergency, and how to tell if someone does need help.

“Typically, you’re going to see like what you see on TV. Clutching your chest, having chest pain or maybe jaw pain, shoulder pain. But it can present a lot of different ways, so it’s always okay to call 911 if you think someone’s having a heart attack,” Scheid explained.

Action taken in the first three minutes of a heart attack can make the difference for the outcome of that person, so Perry Township Fire and Rescue made sure that every student left knowing how to perform CPR to keep someone’s blood flowing until professionals get there.

“Hand placement, one on top of the other, being around the center of the chest and you push hard and you push fast. We used the song Baby Shark because you do need to keep the rhythm at a certain constant,” said Captain Bill Foster of Perry Township Fire and Rescue. 

Captain Foster added that he has personally seen five cases during his career where a life was saved by CPR performed by someone who isn’t a professional before emergency services arrived. He emphasized that it’s an important skill for anyone to have, no matter how old they are. 

“Kids can learn CPR, adults should learn CPR, because you never know when something’s going to happen. It could be in school, it could be at a family function, it could be in church or the grocery. Something could happen to somebody and they need that immediate help and the more people that we can get to learn this and use it, the better off the outcome will be,” Foster continued. 

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