Toronto EMS launches CPR campaign for Heart Month

Watch the video above: Toronto EMS launches CPR campaign for Heart Month. Cindy Pom reports.

TORONTO – Toronto EMS is marking Heart Month in February with the launch of an awareness campaign to remind bystanders that lives can be saved by knowing how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and using the automated external defibrillator (AED).

“Patients who suffer a cardiac arrest have a 75 per cent better chance of survival if CPR is started immediately and a public access defibrillator is used,” said Gayle Pollock, Commander Toronto EMS Safe City Program in a media release.

In 2013, Toronto EMS say bystanders saved the lives of 11 patients who suffered from a cardiac arrest.

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A video posted on YouTube shows councillor Anthony Perruzza demonstrating how the use of CPR and AEDs can help save a person’s life.

“Now that I have tried hands-only CPR and learned how to use an AED, I won’t hesitate to call 911, start CPR, and ask for the public access defibrillator, if and when I see someone who needs my help,” he said.

The City of Toronto’s Safe City Program has installed 1,400 AEDs in public places such as TTC subway stations, City-run community centres, swimming pools and skating rinks.

Anyone looking to take a course on CPR and AEDs offered by the Toronto EMS Safe City program can register here.