The annual PennReady Life Saving Measures event is scheduled for Friday, September 27, from noon until 3 p.m. on College Green. The members of Penn’s Division of Public Safety (DPS) invite the campus community to attend all or part of this event. The rain date is Friday, October 4.

Life Saving Measures includes three major components. The first component is the annual campus-wide UPennAlert Emergency Notification System test and Shelter-in-Place Awareness Drill. Vice President for Public Safety and Superintendent of Penn Police Maureen Rush will open this segment with remarks about the importance of emergency notifications and the special partnerships the DPS has across the Penn community. She will also talk about the partnership with the Philadelphia Fire Department promoting campus safety.

The second and third components are related closely: they are Hands-only Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Automated External Defibrillator (AED) awareness. CPR is a skill everyone should acquire. The CPR component will teach the basic steps to take when a person goes into cardiac arrest.  CPR only takes a few minutes to learn and is a vital team building exercise for your department, school, center, team, club, chapter or college house. Even if you know CPR, come out and refresh your skills; bring a friend who doesn’t know it.You will be taught by the student members of the Penn Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT) and members of the University of Pennsylvania Health System’s Mobile CPR Project. The MERT will be gathering and reporting data to see what organization is most represented.

Penn Police’s Deputy Chief of Tactical Emergency Readiness Mike Fink will lead a team of officers who will discuss the campus AED program at a resource table. They will tell how an AED works in conjunction with hands-only CPR. They will discuss the approximately 160 locations where AEDs are on campus and that Penn Police and the MERT carry them while in service. Maybe your school or center would want to install an AED.

While visiting the many resource tables, staffed by Penn partner organizations, enjoy lunch with the DPS and the Penn community.  Penn Dining is back again this year with its famous Firehouse Chili Cook-Off. Eat the chili and vote for your favorite chef. Also, MERTs favorite hot dog cart is back again!

—Eugene C. Janda, Chief, Fire and Emergency Services, DPS