Buena Vista University Receives Grant for "Saving a Life" Program
The award will purchase infant, child, and adult CPR training manikins and AED devices to be used in a free training and certification session held Tuesday, Feb. 13 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in Forum Room 2 on BVU's campus.
Buena Vista University was recently awarded a $3,571 grant by the Buena Vista County Community Foundation to support the University’s “Saving a Life” program. The program, established by BVU’s Shinichiro “Shinbo” Sugiura, was designed to provide early recognition, early cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and early defibrillation to any victim of sudden cardiac arrest on campus and in the Storm Lake community, specifically those living in rural areas.
“A response time of less than three minutes from the time of incident to the first shock by an automated external defibrillator (AED) is definitely an ideal goal in order to increase the survival rate in a cardiac arrest event,” said Sugiura, assistant professor of exercise science, program director of athletic training, and assistant dean of exercise science at BVU. “However, it sometimes takes longer to access an AED, especially in a rural area.”
Sugiura added, “When a cardiac emergency occurs on BVU’s campus, an emergency medical technician arrives in less than 10 minutes. However, it could take longer than 15 minutes if you would live in a rural area. This program will help certify CPR and AED usage specifically to farmers and their family members.”
The award will purchase infant, child, and adult CPR training manikins and AED devices to be used in a free training and certification session held Tuesday, Feb. 13 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in Forum Room 2 on BVU’s campus. A limited number of slots are available for this annual session. To sign up, contact Shinbo at sugiura@bvu.edu or 712.749.2030.