Healthwatch: Learning CPR
If your loved one needed CPR, would you know how to help? Studies show 4 out of 5 deaths that could be prevented by CPR occur at home. Nancy and Tim Phillips knew their little girl Maggie had a heart problem. “Part of the requirements for us to go home was both parents had to learn infant CPR, and at the time we both just thought it was a formality. I could never have imagined that we would need it,” said Nancy Phillips. At six-months old Maggie stopped breathing and the new parents were suddenly forced to remember that training. “It’s not anything that you really think about everyday, but in that situation all of that just kicked in automatically. it was really amazing,” Nancy Phillips said. Because of the CPR administered by Tim, Maggie was stable enough to be life-flighted to a hospital and undergo more surgery to help her heart. Tim can’t stress enough how important he feels the procedure is. “I feel like every newborn parent needs to know CPR. Period. There’s really no exceptions to it. I mean, you have can have so many events to be able to use it and once you know it, you can use it on adults, children, somebody else’s children not just your own,” Tim Phillips said. “It’s completely easy to do as long as you are trained to do it, and being trained is probably the easiest 10 minute lesson I’ve had in my life.” That one ten minute lesson made the difference in his little girl’s life. “All of the doctors, paramedics, her physician, her cardiologist… they all told us that the CPR is what saved her life,” Nancy Phillips said. You can learn CPR during a community class on Saturday, July 20 from 10 A.M. to noon. The class is offered by the West Tennessee Women’s Center and the West Tennessee Heart and Vascular Center at the Therapy and Learning Center located at 32 Conrad Drive.
