Passersby learn how to save someone’s life at Burbank sidewalk CPR event

Gone are the days when a person has to put their mouth on a stranger if they wanted to perform first aid.

Members of the Burbank Fire Department and staff from Providence St. Joseph Medical Center congregated in a courtyard at Palm Avenue and San Fernando Boulevard and spent several hours on Thursday teaching residents and visitors the “sidewalk” method of performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR.

NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with what’s going on in the 818 >>

Burbank was one of many public safety agencies in Los Angeles County that on Thursday provided information to the public about the preferred technique of administering CPR.

Instead of having to worry about breathing into a person’s mouth when performing CPR, people are now told to only do chest compressions until first responders arrive, said Burbank Fire Capt. Daryl Isozaki.

Burbank Fire Department firefighter Justin Chin watches Nicollette Khachatryan, 6 of Glendale, after showing her the properly technique for chest compressions during the Burbank sidewalk CPR at Paseo Del Fuego on Thursday, June 2, 2016.

(Raul Roa / Staff Photographer)

“It’s a step down from the traditional [method of] breathing [into someone’s mouth] and chest compressions,” he said. “We’re trying to get people down there to start doing chest compressions. It was discovered that just by doing chest compressions, it keeps circulating oxygen throughout the body.”

Isozaki added that it is important for early first-aid treatment to be administered to a person that is unconscious because it increases the chances of survival significantly.

The goal of performing CPR is to prevent damage to the brain and organs by keeping the blood flowing and providing oxygen to the body tissues. Traditional CPR introduces more oxygen into a patient’s body via breathing into that person’s mouth.

However, research has shown that there is still enough oxygen in a person’s blood even if they are not breathing, said Jessica Strange, a registered nurse and a pre-hospital care coordinator at St. Joseph.

“You really only off-load maybe about 20% of the oxygen to your tissues,” she said. “And because we’re creating a type of vacuum with the chest compressions, you are getting a little bit of air in still.”

Dozens of Burbank residents and visitors from out of town stopped by the fire department’s makeshift training area, where they laid out mats with CPR dummies for the public to practice their compression skills.

Resident Johanna Moyal was with her family in the downtown area and watched as her daughter and son practiced chest compressions on the dummies.

“My kids remembered this [training] when the fire department had its last Service Day,” she said. “If the kids know how to do CPR and they’ve practiced before, they won’t be as scared.”

Moyal said that it was great that the city organized a free CPR-training event for the public to teach them that performing first-aid is as easy as pushing down on someone’s chest.

“Back in the day, you had to breathe in a person — three breaths — then 10 pushes then more breaths, but I was always concerned about where to push in the chest area,” she said. “This new way means anyone can do it, and it’s a tool that everyone should have and know.”

--

Anthony Clark Carpio, anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio