Joliet offers training in CPR and AED devices

The Joliet Fire Department is reminding residents and businesses that it offers free training in life-saving techniques as it marks National Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Automated External Defibrillator (AED) Awareness Week this week.

The fire department has set a goal to train 7,500 people annually in CPR and the use of AED devices, the city said in a news release.

About 70% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in the home, according to the city. Only 11% of more than 350,000 Americans who suffer a cardiac arrest each year survive.

The city emphasized the importance of CPR and AED devices in saving people suffering cardia arrests.

“For every minute without immediate CPR, survival chances drop 10 percent,” the city release said. “Ninety percent of cardiac arrest patients who receive a shock from an AED within the first minute survive.”

The fire department provides free training in CPR and use of AED devices to encourage people to take action before the fire department ambulance arrives. The fire department advises in the event of a cardiac arrest that people on the scene call 911, start CPR, and use an AED if one is available.

“We know the statistics which is why our department changed some of the methods we use to treat cardiac arrests in 2020 to increase survival rates,” Fire Chief Jeff Carey said in the release. “After making those changes, we doubled our cardiac arrest survival rate. While that is good news, we can do better if more people were trained in CPR and there were more AEDs in the community.”

The Joliet Fire Department offers free classes in CPR and the use of AEDs for residents, schools and businesses in Joliet.

Anyone interested in the training can call the Joliet Fire Department Health Services Division at 815-724-3503 or email jfdems@joliet.gov to sign up for a free AED/CPR class.