Call for CPR classes in schools

SAVE lives by putting CPR on the school curriculum, the Government has been urged.

The Irish Heart Foundation wants Finance Minister Brian Cowen to provide funding in the December Budget to roll out a national CPR programme for transition students in all schools.

About 5,000 people die from cardiac arrest and seven out of 10 arrests happen out of hospital with a survival rate of just 1%. When a person collapses following a cardiac arrest, every minute without CPR or defibrillation reduces the survival rate by between 7% and 10%.