Imagine that one day, mid-school year, while eating lunch with your friends, someone suddenly starts wheezing on their food. They can’t talk and start clawing at their neck, panicked, and you realize that they’re choking. What do you do? Do you run around the table and attempt the Heimlich maneuver? Do you try to find a teacher, or do you just shout, ‘Someone is choking!’? What is the best decision to make to ensure that your friend gets help?
Although this is a fictional scenario, it’s very possible that you might not know what to do in a real emergency, and panic can cause you to ask these questions instead of actually helping the person at risk. This could worsen the situation, so students need to learn how to overcome uncertainty and take real action. A fundamental approach to this is to learn through training, but there are many ways in which people have developed these skills.
Without proper training, the primary way students develop knowledge of these situations is through outside sources, such as medical dramas. These shows depict hospitals, ‘well-educated’ hospital staff, and life-saving procedures that many view as insight for emergencies they might encounter in their life. However, when it comes to the authenticity of these shows, they can’t always be trusted to deliver factual information, as they are inherently forms of entertainment that can be flawed or inaccurate.
TV shows will often dramatize causes and treatments for emergencies to keep viewers interested, which can lead students to receive faulty information on how to handle an emergency. They can show an incorrectly done procedure and provide flawed information on correct courses of action.
Its ultimate effect is that students might use harmful or simply ineffective methods when experiencing an emergency because they don’t know what else to do.
TV programs shouldn’t be responsible for educating students on these life skills. It is the responsibility of schools to make sure that students are well-informed on how to deal with medical crises. The best way that SCH can do this would be to incorporate a medical emergency preparedness education in the form of First Aid and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) certifications.
First Aid refers to the immediate medical attention someone receives during an emergency, such as giving the Heimlich maneuver when someone is choking. By taking a First Aid course, students can gain a real understanding of the steps to take during an emergency and how to remain calm. Students would learn how to assist with treatment for common emergencies, like injuries, burns, or simple illnesses, and possibly more complicated emergencies like allergic reactions, seizures, and broken bones.
This type of education could prepare students for occurrences during their lifetime where they won’t have a medical professional, teacher, or parent for oversight. This includes college, where having a basis for emergency preparedness could be highly beneficial.
Keough has had experience previously teaching emergency preparedness courses to many groups of people, ranging from SCH fifth graders to coaches. However, emergency education is no longer part of the curriculum as it was when the schools were divided. Currently, only SCH coaches receive Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) training, which students should learn as well. This is because CPR is the most well-known treatment for cardiac arrest, which in turn is one of the most dangerous and quickly fatal medical emergencies.
When someone goes into cardiac arrest, their heart stops beating, which stops oxygenated blood from traveling to the brain. If more than a few minutes of oxygen deprivation pass, the person can sustain lifelong brain damage or potentially die. According to the Red Cross, more than 350,000 people go into cardiac arrest each year, and only around 10% of them survive.
It might seem even more frightening that cardiac arrest can happen to anyone, from children to the elderly and at any time, such as to SCH community members.
Nancy Center has worked at SCH Middle School Gift store for12 years, meaning that most people in the school would likely have had the pleasure of meeting her once or twice. Almost two years ago, her husband, Michael Center, a volunteer firefighter, went into sudden cardiac arrest while trying to investigate a car accident.
“He got out to stop, and he literally went down. You sometimes hear about athletes just dropping on a field. That’s the same concept,” Center said as she described the initial situation. The man who was involved in the car accident knew CPR and immediately started compressions. Center stated that the man was joined by another volunteer firefighter, and they alternated compressions until the EMT arrived. Center stated that “if my husband had no CPR in those seven minutes, he would have been brain dead.”
After the incident, he suffered a few cognitive damages. “It took a little bit for him to come back to himself completely,” but in about 6 months, he fully recovered and is currently faring well. This is because he was able to get CPR in time, which, when effective, can triple someone’s survival rate.
However, of the cardiac arrests that have happened in public in 2025, only 12.6% of them received effective bystander CPR. Educating students on how to administer CPR would not only prepare them for this emergency but could also increase the amount of bystander CPR given and in turn save more lives.
“Unfortunately, these things happen, and hopefully you never have to use it in your life. But to get licensed and to know how to do it in case of an emergency, or even to get someone to help, is really imperative,” Center stated.
Knowing First Aid and CPR can benefit students beyond saving a life, as many professions often require or prefer that a person have these life skills. For many students in high school, the most common to get jobs involve taking care of children, either by babysitting, lifeguarding, or working at a summer camp. Life saving skills like CPR are often a required skill, while First Aid can make a student appear more qualified or competent. This certification can assist job-hunting students. When a student becomes an adult, this fact stays true, but is extended to jobs without involvement with children such as construction work or firefighting.
Overall, First Aid and CPR are practical skills that students can carry throughout their lives and can help them in a multitude of ways. Gaining them in high school would be highly beneficial, and in general, the sooner someone learns these important life skills, the better their chances of responding to an emergency.
