Page 77 - OHS, June 2020

researchers surveyed 2,000 employees in various fields such as cor- porate offices, hospitality, education and industry/labor.
Study findings revealed that most employees do not have access to CPR and first aid training, and half could not locate an auto- mated external defibrillator (AED) at work (helpful hint: place it in the same location as the fire extinguisher). Such training has the potential to save thousands of lives, considering there are 10,000 cardiac arrests in the workplace annually.
The second survey from OSHA and commissioned by AHA included more than 1,000 safety managers in industries regulated by OSHA. The safety managers see a need for more frequent train- ing, but a third of them said first aid, CPR and AED training only become a priority at their workplace after a demonstrated need, meaning after an incident.
All of this data brings to light an important realization: Employ- ees may be relying on untrained peers in the event of an emergency, which creates a false sense of security. Many may wrongly believe there is someone onsite who is qualified and able to respond, but that’s clearly not always the case.
Here’s the good news: The study shows that more than 90 per- cent of employees would take First Aid and CPR+AED training if employers offered it.
Save Lives: AED Awareness
Use of an AED is the third step in the cardiac arrest chain of sur- vival, with the first two steps being a call to 9-1-1 and beginning immediate CPR.
During a cardiac arrest, the electrical activity in the heart is dis- rupted. According to the AHA, every second counts because with- out immediate CPR, the heart, brain and other vital organs aren’t receiving enough oxygenated blood. For every minute without CPR, the chance of death increases by 10 percent.
Survival from cardiac arrest doubles when a bystander applies an AED before emergency responders arrive, according to 2018 re- search published in AHA’s flagship journal, “Circulation.”
Unfortunately, less than half (45.7 percent) of cardiac arrest victims get the immediate help they need before emergency re- sponders arrive, in part because medical services take, on average, between four and 10 minutes to reach someone in cardiac arrest.
An international team of researchers looked at 49,555 out-of- hospital cardiac arrests that occurred in major cities in the U.S. and Canada. They analyzed a key subgroup of these arrests: those that occurred in public were witnessed by bystanders, and the pa- tients were shockable. The researchers found that nearly 66 per- cent of these victims survived to hospital discharge after a shock delivered by a bystander. Their findings emphasized that bystand- ers—or for our purposes, coworkers—make a critical difference in assisting cardiac arrest victims before emergency responders can get to the scene.
Be the Difference. It’s Simple.
If you want to be a part of a larger culture of safety in the workplace and are interested in getting CPR and AED training at work, it’s not difficult to do. Helpful resources from quality organizations such as AHA provide beneficial training.
For example, AHA’s Heartsaver First Aid CPR AED Training course teaches participants to provide first aid, perform CPR and
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