The University of Rochester and the American Heart Association are teaming up to bring what they say is New York state's first mobile CPR training station to Rochester.
The unit will make its debut at Buffalo Bills training camp at St. John Fisher University on Wednesday.
"A big part of it is not only being able to help others intervene and save lives," said Stephanie Von Bacho, UR Medicine's senior director for learning and development. "It's also giving people what is really a critical life skill."
It was the on-field cardiac arrest and subsequent recovery of Bills safety Damar Hamlin that sparked a nationwide surge of interest in CPR training in January.
That level of interest continues today, according to Von Bacho, who said the University of Rochester continues to hear from organizations and community groups who are interested in learning the life-saving technique.
The mobile CPR training unit uses both video and audio instruction to guide a user through the steps of learning CPR on a mannequin.
"There's a tremendous amount of feedback that happens, whether they need to improve upon the depth of their compressions, of the rate, or how fast they're going with the compressions, to be as effective as possible," Von Bacho explained.
She said a typical session might last five to 10 minutes for someone who already had CPR training, and probably somewhat longer for a first-time learner.
After the training station leaves Bills camp on Aug. 10, Von Bacho said the goal is to make it available for local events and bring it to venues such as The Strong National Museum of Play or the Rochester Museum & Science Center.
Particular emphasis will be placed on the city of Rochester.
"Our data tells us that pre-hospital CPR helps to save lives, and we know that there is less likelihood of pre-hospital CPR happening in the city, so we want to be able to offer this critical training," Von Bacho said.
When it becomes operational, the University of Rochester Medical Center believes the CPR training station will be one of only two in the U.S.
