Mobile CPR Project: Bringing Life-Saving Skills to Philadelphia Residents	Print Issue
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Three years ago, Radnor Township Police Officer Anthony Radico, at 46 years of age, was just finishing a routine workout at a gym in Upper Darby when suddenly, he went into cardiac arrest. His sister, who was at the gym with him, ran for help. Luckily for Mr. Radico, Amanda Beal was also at the gym that day. Upon seeing that Mr. Radico was unresponsive and had no pulse, Ms. Beal, who had learned cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) just one year prior as part of a master’s program in occupation therapy but had never used the technique in a real life scenario, began administering chest compressions. Ms. Beal continued CPR until paramedics arrived. Before being resuscitated with an automated external defibrillator (AED), Mr. Radico was “down” for 7-8 minutes—a certain death sentence had Ms. Beal not been there to help. Today, Mr. Radico, a father of three, is back to work on the police force.

Cardiac arrest kills more than 1,000 Philadelphia residents every year, yet there is a therapy that people can learn that can double a victim’s chance of survival. CPR can be done by anyone, yet the percentage of people who receive bystander CPR in Philadelphia is half the national average.

To tackle the issue and help overcome this health disparity, experts from Penn Medicine’s Center for Resuscitation Science and department of emergency medicine officially launched Philadelphia’s Mobile CPR Project, a public health initiative that aims to educate as many Philadelphia residents as possible in hands-only CPR, free of charge using an innovative video learning approach that takes less than 30 minutes per training. Funded by Independence Blue Cross, project organizers will host training sessions in at community centers, shelters, schools, religious organizations and community health fairs. Certified health care providers will travel to a training sessions in the Mobile CPR van, bringing all of the necessary presentation materials, and providing CPR Anytime® kits that participants can bring home with them to show their families or use to practice their skills. The overall goal of the initiative is to bring vital, life-saving training to those who might not seek such training on their own.

In 2012, Penn Medicine piloted the Mobile CPR Project in Hartford, Connecticut. The initiative resulted in more than 5,000 Hartford residents trained in delivering CPR.
The Mobile CPR Project launch is part of the Philadelphia Regional CPR Awareness Coalition’s CPR Ready campaign, an initiative that also launched last month, designed to increase the number of people in the region who are qualified and willing to perform bystander hands-only CPR, as well as use an automated external defibrillator (AED).