Training in life-saving skills including CPR now mandatory in P.E.I. high schools

When Grade 10 student Jackson Saunders was shown how to perform CPR this week, he quickly realized it wasn't as intimidating as people often think.

"It doesn't take much to learn. It's really easy to learn. It didn't take us long," he told CBC News.

Saunders was among the Colonel Gray High School students at a recent demonstration of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other life-saving tools as part of a new initiative by the Prince Edward Island government.

The province has announced it will make CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) training mandatory for high school students, at the Grade 10 level for Public Schools Branch schools and Grade 9 level for French schools.

Teachers across the province have been receiving training in order to deliver the program to students.

"As a student here, we're all a part of a community, and being able to help others in our community is really, really important," Saunders said.

"I've always wanted to be a doctor, so it's part of a step, I guess. I hope to fulfil that dream."

'A real life skill that is immediately relevant'

The program is spearheaded by the Advanced Coronary Treatment (ACT) Foundation, a national charitable organization dedicated to bringing free CPR and AED training to high school students across Canada.

Sandra Clarke, executive director of the ACT Foundation, said the program has personal meaning for her.

"I lost my father at a very young age from sudden death and cardiac arrest. I did not even know about CPR at the time, and when I first heard about CPR, it was like, 'Oh my gosh, there's something you can do,'" said Clarke, who founded the organization.

She said the program came to P.E.I. thanks to the efforts of local emergency physician Dr. Harrison Carmichael, who wanted to bring the foundation's training to Island students.

Together, they worked with the two school boards and raised about $22,800, about half of the total needed, from community partners to buy training mannequins. The P.E.I. government stepped in to cover the remaining cost.

"It all came together really quite quickly," she said. "Now all 15 schools between the two boards have a class set of CPR training mannequins, AED training units, and the teachers are trained to train their students in these life-saving skills."

Clarke said feedback has been very positive.

"Many teachers tell us — and this goes across the country, not only in P.E.I. — they say, 'When we're teaching CPR, you can hear a pin drop in the classroom,' because the students are so keen to learn how to save a life," she said.

"They see themselves as actually being empowered to save a life… All the way around and across the country, we have had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of young people and teachers who have saved lives already."

The program on P.E.I. also includes opioid overdose response training, which Clarke said was added at the request of many teachers who wanted students to understand how to respond to a suspected overdose.

"Now, students know how to use the nasal naloxone. They're learning more about opioids and what can happen in opioid overdose. They're learning… what is naloxone, what does it do, and how it can save a life, so that, in and of itself, will save lives, and hopefully it will also lead to prevention as well," she said.