More than 1,500 showed up at Four Winds Field Wednesday morning to learn CPR.
Despite the rain the students showed up and got the chance to learn basic CPR. Instead of being out on the baseball field, they crammed into the stadium concourse.
“They’re gonna learn some information today that could potentially save someone’s life," said Austin Szalai, a science teacher at Dickinson Fine Arts Academy. "Someone’s mother, brother, sister, father...you know, you never know.”
This is the second year for the training, with three more to go.
Andrew Wiand is the executive director of EnFocus, one of the organizing groups for the training. He said the idea is to prepare enough students to make an impact.
“One of the reasons why we wanted to do five years is so those stories can start to come out and we have time and attention to really listen for them. So if we have a cohort of five years of students go through we think there’s a pretty good chance somebody will have an impactful situation that they’re put in.”
The students are helped by volunteers from the local health systems and fire departments. They are also given instructional materials and a practice dummy to take home with them.