Calif. Bill Would Mandate Teens Take CPR Training

A California lawmaker has introduced a bill that would mandate that high school students receive CPR training before they graduate.

AB 319 will be heard in a committee hearing on Wednesday. Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez, D-Chino, introduced the bill in February.

The bill calls for statewide school districts and charter schools to implement a curriculum on how to perform CPR and using an automated external defibrillator.

This training would be offered in physical education classes or another course needed for students to graduate.

The program would be developed by the American Heart Association or the American Red Cross.

In emphasizing the reason for a law, the bill notes that only 10 percent of people who suffer cardiac arrest survive.

“If no CPR is provided or no defibrillation occurs within three to five minutes of collapse, the chances of survival drop,” the bill states.

Two students died in 2006 and 2014 in the Placentia-Yorba Linda School District to sudden cardiac arrest, leading that school district to become the first in the state to implement “hands only” CPR training.

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