JMCSS school nurses complete new, life-saving emergency training

JACKSON, Tenn. — School nurses in the Jackson-Madison County School System received special training Wednesday that could save your child’s life.

The district said the program teaches nurses how to evaluate and treat seriously ill infants and children.

Sixteen school nurses performed CPR on training dummies. “They are skills,” said Chrystal Taylor, a nurse at Alexander Elementary School. “And it is something that we want to make sure that we’re doing correctly.”

The training, called PEARS, stands for Pediatric Advanced Emergency Assessment, Recognition and Stabilization. The course gives nurses a CPR refresher. Plus, the district said it teaches them how to recognize respiratory distress, shock and cardiac arrest, then what to do while waiting on an ambulance.

“They’re going to be there in the schools,” JMCSS Coordinated School Health Administrator Annette Wilson said. “And they have to handle the situation until EMS arrives at the scene.”

Teresa Johnson, ECC Coordinator for West Tennessee Healthcare, said nurses learned to look for signs and symptoms of someone having a life-threatening condition that needs to be treated. “Each and every day when they go to work, they’re not sure what they’re going to encounter,” Johnson said.

The district said this is the first time the nurses received this type of training and certification.

The school system said the ultimate goal is to make sure these nurses know how to respond to any emergency. “It’s going to give us the tools we need to respond to any incident that may happen with our children,” Taylor said.

The district said the West Tennessee Healthcare Foundation covered the cost of Wednesday’s training.