Today, I was excited to be a part of a group from the American Heart Association that went to Blossom Valley Elementary School in Los Gatos to help teach the kids how to do hands only CPR.

It was quite an assembly. Also attending were several county councilpersons, the superintendent and many fired and EMS workers. Santa Clara County is working on putting automated external defibrillators (AEDs) n all of their schools. We were at Blossom Valley to talk to the kids about the AED and to show them how to use it.

Three of the five fifth grade classes participated in the assembly. I love fifth graders! They are interested and smart and fun. They were excited to learn the process and they were all really good at it. I walked around, along with the other adults, to make sure they had their hands positioned correctly, were pumping the Manikins correctly, etc.  

The Manikins that were used are like the ones in the Family and Friends CPR Anytime kit.

The cool thing is that these kits can be purchased for your own home use so your fifth grader can learn how to properly do CPR, too! 

Once the kids learned how to do the hands only CPR, the AED instructions were added in an they practiced that. I think they kids learned really well the subject matter they were supposed to learn. They had fun doing it and I’m sure that if they ever need to help someone, they will be able to!