Paramedic Students Use Social Media and Humor to Raise
Awareness of CPR and AEDs
Pittsburgh, Penn. – The Sudden Cardiac
Arrest Foundation today announced the grand prize winner of its You Can Save a
Life Video Awareness Contest. The student competition invited teams to submit
videos about the impact of sudden cardiac arrest and the importance of CPR and
automated external defibrillators (AEDs), empowering students and communities
to make a difference in helping to save lives.
The grand prize winner is 911 Emergency ROCKsponse, a college team from
Ontario, Canada, whose creative paramedic rap has already received more than
42,000 views and 240 comments on YouTube. The Foundation will award Ryan
Chomiszak, the group’s creator, with a new AED, three CPR Anytime™ kits, and a
Nintendo Wii™ gaming system. Chomiszak will donate the AED and CPR Anytime kits
to his college.
“We wanted to create a fun video that would motivate our class and help
everyone get through paramedic training successfully,” said Chomiszak, or
'DCMedicRyan' on YouTube. “We used comedy to engage the
viewers’ interest, but we take sudden cardiac arrest very seriously.
While the medics in our video certainly aren’t demonstrating proper technique,
the steps they sing about are grounded in SCA protocol. As new
paramedic graduates, we look forward to using this video, and our skills in the
field, to help make a difference in improving SCA survival.”
The Foundation’s panel of judges reviewed the video entries for their overall
message, creativity, originality, degree of student participation and
likelihood to raise awareness. While technical accuracy was not a key focus in
the judging, one of the objectives of the contest and its prizes is to
encourage the development—through awareness and training—of potentially
life-saving skills. Contest finalists and winners are featured on the
Foundation’s YouTube Channel (http://www.youtube.com/SCAFoundation).
“We applaud 911 Emergency ROCKsponse’s use of humor to generate interest in
emergency response to sudden cardiac arrest, a condition that can strike anyone
at any time, including students, teachers and community members in schools and on
playing fields,” said Mary Newman, president of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest
Foundation. “This kind of positive energy is helping to foster a new generation
of people who are ready, willing and able to help. Ultimately, this generation
has the power to increase survival from the nation’s leading cause of death.”
The awarded AED was donated by Cardiac Science, sponsors of the
Foundation’s You Can Save a Life at School™ awareness campaign.
Visit http://sca-aware.org/schools
to learn more about our next video contest.
About the SCA Foundation
The Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation is a
national non-profit 501(c)3
organization based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its mission is to raise
awareness and save lives threatened by sudden cardiac arrest. For more
information, visit http://sca-aware.org,
join the You Can Save a Life group on LinkedIn, follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/youcansavealife
and ‘Like’ us on Facebook at http://facebook.com/youcansavealife.
CONTACT:
Carissa Caramanis O’Brien
978-875-2020
carissa.obrien@sca-aware.org
http://twitter.com/CarissaO