San Bernardino County, Big Bear Lake, CA — February is American Heart Month in San Bernardino County, per a proclamation from the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors last week. Given heart disease’s rank as the number one killer of adults in the U.S., County Supervisor Gary Ovitt says, “I urge all citizens to recognize the critical importance of tools and skills that will increase survival rates from cardiac arrest.”
An opportunity to increase those survival rates comes this Saturday, when the Big Bear Lake Fire Department offers a CPR/AED class, which is open to the community at a cost of $30 per participant. The full day class, starting at 9am on the 20th, will be taught by firefighter paramedics, who will teach attendees how to perform one-rescuer adult, child and infant CPR, as well as the basics of the automatic external defibrillator. To register for Saturday’s CPR class, which will also include American Heart Association reference materials and a two-year CPR certification card upon completion, call the fire department at 866-7566.
CPR training, and community AED programs, adds Supervisor Ovitt, “can save thousands of live each year. I took this message to heart (no pun intended) when I suffered heart-related difficulties a couple years ago and I learned the importance of good heart health, including diet and exercise and making healthy heart changes in my daily life.”