St. Cloud Fire Rescue was on scene at St. Cloud Middle School Thursday – not to respond to an emergency, but to launch a new hands-only CPR training project.
The project, which aims to train Osceola middle and high school staff in the lifesaving procedure, is a product of state Rep. Paula Stark’s “Build-a-Bill” program.
Since 2022, middle school civics students have gone through the process of bill building: they identify a real-life problem that affects communities, research possible solutions and then form a bill that would implement those solutions.
Students who crafted the CPR training bill were certainly inspired by a real-life problem, as one of them witnessed the school’s basketball coach collapse during a basketball game in February 2023. The student saw how important it is to respond quickly in a medical emergency when the school resource officer and bystanders rushed to the coach’s aid.
And while the bill didn’t pass at the state level, St. Cloud Fire Chief Jason Miller and the Osceola County School District saw the value in it and joined Rep. Stark in creating the program.
“In light of recent events that happened [in Minnesota], CPR is important, and so is first aid,” Miller said.
The training he provides to school staff is hands-only CPR.
“You don't have to worry about going mouth-to-mouth with the patient or anything like that,” Miller said. “It. Science has proven when you stop and interrupt CPR, as a common person who's not trained to a medical level, that actually is worse than if you just keep doing CPR.”
Miller said the cost of the training is negligible. “It’s only the staffing hours,” he said. “We have the mannequins because we do this at some public events, so we just bought a couple more mannequins. It’s all part of our public outreach.”
SCMS Principal Christina Harrell said she is thankful for the partnership that brought this program forward.
“We always tell our community and our students and our parents that safety is our number one priority,” Harrell said. “We're here to instruct and grow our students, but safety is our number one priority. To have this peace of mind, that so many staff members know how to respond immediately in the event of an emergency, is priceless.”
