FARMINGTON -- Preparation and training empower first responders and citizens to cope with emergencies, those concepts are what Brad Johnson conveys to Farmington Career Academies students as he teaches Advanced Health.
"First of all the whole premise of offering Advanced Health to high school students is to give us an opportunity to look at a different side of health," Johnson explains. "What we did was really targeted things like CPR. There is a need for that. We use the school nurse and the kids get certified with a program through the American Red Cross. Through knowing CPR and being certified the potential to save a life becomes greater."
According to School Nurse Tiffany Rogers CNA certification is not yet available among Farmington Career Academies programs.
“That is not offered on our campus. Hopefully down the road we’ll be able to offer it,” Rogers said.
Rogers said a Farmington student did achieve CNA certification two years ago during her senior year while splitting time between the high school campus and taking Northwest Technical Institute concurrent credit courses.
“She was working as a CNA at a local extended-care facility during her senior year,” Rogers said.
Farmington students can also take concurrent credit courses to obtain a CNA certification through Northwest Arkansas Community College.
Students learn field triage such as wound identification and understanding the difference when faced with different types of wounds themselves or while assessing a victim. They study different types of burns and how to treat them.
"Students learn what an emergency survival chain is," Johnson said. "All that, even as something as simple as a 911 call can help save a life."
According to the American Heart Association, a chain of survival depicts critical actions required to treat life-threatening emergencies, including heart attack, cardiac arrest, stroke, and foreign body airway obstruction. Links within this survival chain include early access to the emergency response system, early CPR, early defibrillation to treat cardiac arrest caused by ventricular fibrillation and early advanced care by EMTs and medical professionals.
"We get kids familiar with an A.E.D. (automated external defibrillator)," Johnson said. "Twenty-five years ago the average person didn't know much about an A.E.D. We don't want our students to just know where the A.E.D.s are (on campus) in an emergency, we want them being comfortable to get an A.E.D. and use it."
Johnson knows first-hand the value of having an A.E.D. on hand and having confidence to utilize the device properly. Nearly three years ago, Ella Wilson checked out of a freshman game at Shiloh Christian, then collapsed on the bench and went into cardiac arrest. Dr. Pete Ball, a Farmington parent, used an A.E.D. to jump-start Wilson's heart. Wilson is now a senior.
"We take this dummy and teach kids how to handle certain situations," Johnson said. "He breathes. We can take kids through a face-down victim and show them how to roll them over, how to save a life, and how to maneuver a victim."
Johnson said the school's career academies are very student-focused.
"We're giving students a sneak-peak of something they might want to do as a career. They get an opportunity to experience some of this. Some of them may have thought they knew what they wanted to do for a career, but they may change their mind. For those, who might want to go into the medical field, they're not having to wait until they get to college or after they graduate to figure that out. What an advantage to someone still in high school."
General News on 11/22/2017