'It could happen to anyone': 700 Cork students and teachers learn life-saving CPR

Staff and students at Coláiste Éamann Rís took part in the largest training session ever undertaken by emergency services in the city

First-year students, Kelsi McDonagh, Justine Obazi, Holly Coates and Tomás McCormack at a CPR training day for all the students at Coláiste Éamann Rís, Ballyphehane, Cork. Picture: David Creedon

Close to 700 pupils and teachers have been trained in the use of CPR at a Cork school, the largest training session ever undertaken by emergency services in the city.

Rows of children lined up at CPR manikins in the school hall at Coláiste Éamann Rís to learn a vital skill that can save lives and had no issues getting stuck in with some chest compressions.

“Like any workplace or school, we have been affected by death or loss of mobility caused by heart attacks,” said the school’s principal Aaron Wolfe. 

“We felt it was really, really important that we would train up as many students as possible.” 

“We have had students in the school who have seen their parents die of a heart attack and they’ve stood back helpless because they don’t know what to do,” he said.

Cork City first responder Martin Crowley instructs first-year student Anna Daushanr in performing compressions on a doll as part of the CPR training day. Picture: David Creedon

Barry O’Donoghue of Cork City Community First Responders, a former student of the year at the school, led the training as part of a drive to teach 1,000 people CPR in Cork this month.

More than 60 manikins were gathered from across Cork for the training, which was more than twice the size of any training conducted by the organisation to date.

Ger O’Dea, community engagement officer at the National Ambulance Service, told the students: “In the last six months, there were two [cases] around the country where an incident happened and it was actually the student that saved their friends’ lives.

“We actually gave out two bravery awards to two teenagers who saved their friends' lives before teachers even got to react to what happened,” he said. 

Members of the teaching staff at Coláiste Éamann Rís practise compressions. Picture: David Creedon

“You’ll be able to tell your parents how to perform CPR. That also happened in Douglas, where a 14-year-old girl told her parents what to do. One parent went to get a defibrillator from the church and the other did CPR. It actually saved her sister from cardiac arrest. That’s how important it is.” 

Fourth-year student Victor Marques said: “I already did this training once, about three years ago, and now I learned a bunch of things I forgot. It’s good to know [CPR] because it could happen to anyone.”