‘If You Don’t Know This Stuff, Somebody’s Liable to Die.’ CPR Kits Teach People how to Save Lives

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Jacob Muai doesn’t remember what he did on the Fourth of July.

The 64-year-old Midland resident was told what happened six days later, after he woke up.

He was at home with family and friends, celebrating the holiday — something they do every year. His family remembered him complaining about being tired. Somewhere between 10 and 11 p.m., he went to sit down.

“They said that I came and sat down, and the minute I sat down on the chair that’s when I had a heart attack,” Muai said.

But what Muai actually suffered from, his doctors said, was a cardiac arrest. With heart attacks, a patient remains alert and can relay symptoms. With cardiac arrests, there can be no warning signs. The heart stops beating within seconds, and the patient is unconscious.

Cardiac arrests are the No. 1 killer in the United States. Every year, more than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur, according to the American Heart Association.

Luckily, Muai wasn’t alone when he went into cardiac arrest. Even more luckily, one of his family friends was a licensed practical nurse and immediately began administering CPR.

“The doctors I saw in the hospital said I was lucky to have somebody there,” said Muai, who is now in a cardiac rehab program. “That tells me how important it is that everybody should know CPR.”

CPR, if administered immediately, can triple the chance of a cardiac-arrest victim’s survival. Former cardiac rehab patient Jack Dresel witnessed that first-hand when he helped save the life of a man who went into cardiac arrest at a senior housing facility. Dresel helped administer CPR with help from a woman nearby.



“I’ve always believed in knowing these things, because my years of working with (Boy Scouts),” Dresel said. “If you don’t know this stuff, somebody’s liable to die. You could prevent it.”

Now, it’s even easier for the family members of patients in the Pulse Heart Institute Cardiac Rehab Program to receive CPR training.

A total of 190 CPR Anytime kits were donated to MultiCare this month, thanks to a donation by the American Heart Association and Abbott Construction. The kits will be given to patients in the Cardiac Rehab Program at the MultiCare Pulse Heart Institute Cardiac Rehab Clinic in South Hill to share with their families.

“We didn’t have CPR class before,” said Emily Grunenfelder, a registered nurse at the South Hill clinic. “It’s filling a void we didn’t have before because we didn’t have a way for (family members) to practice like this or have resources to take home that they can share.”

The CPR learning kits consist of learning DVDs, “manikins” to practice with and other instructions.

“This is great because they each get to take home a kit,” Grunenfelder said. “We go through the process while they’re here and practice while they’re here.”

The donation is in part to spread awareness of the importance of administering CPR immediately, rather than waiting for help to arrive.

“Our goal is to increase the rate of bystander response and in turn, increase the rate of survival,” American Heart Association CPR manager Shana Contreiras said.