Hinsdale Central student Shaan Keswani was impacted when he saw an American Heart Association video showing a man on the floor of a shopping mall.
Shoppers are shown walking by the man and then all the shoppers disappear. The voice over asks if others will be there to help or if that shopper will be left all alone.
Keswani does not want that scenario to play out locally and has set out to inform area residents about automated external defibrillators and cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
“My goal is to get people familiar with AEDs,” said the 16-year-old member of Boy Troop 56 in Burr Ridge, which meets at Gower Middle School. “I want them to see how helpful the devices can be.”
To that end, Keswani conducted a class Saturday at the Burr Ridge Park District to get Scouts and other residents familiar with basic CPR steps and AEDs, portable electronic devices that automatically diagnose a person in cardiac arrest and provide electrical therapy to restart a stopped heart.
The class was Keswani’s Eagle Scout project. Eagle Scout is the Boy Scout organization’s highest rank.
Keswani’s class did not offer any sort of certification, but was a way to get people started in learning life-saving steps. The Willowbrook resident hoped that the class would make people comfortable with using an AED in an emergency situation and also pique their interest in learning more life-saving techniques in a certification class.
“The goal of my class is to provide the steps one should take to potentially save a life and to engage the class by having them participate in re-enacted scenarios led by my Boy Scout troop and me,” Keswani said prior to the class session.
He hoped the class would be a important tool “to help out the community for the rest of their lives.”
Keswani said he started thinking about having such a class after Lauren’s Law was enacted in June 2012. The law requires CPR and external defibrillator training for all Illinois high school students.
In 2008, Lauren Laman was an 18-year-old St. Charles North senior who went into cardiac arrest at drill team practice. Although an external defibrillator machine was just 40 feet from where Laman collapsed, no students or teachers used the device to try to revive her.
He noted two days after the student AED training legislation was signed into law, a Porta High School student collapsed during a basketball game and was revived with the use of a nearby AED.
The Hinsdale Central student said while high school students will be trained in life-saving procedure due to the law, many other residents also need to be trained. He said his class was just one step in that direction.
“For some people, this will be the first time they see an AED,” Keswani said. “For those who don’t know the process we will review the process of using an AED.”
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The Scout noted the device talks individuals through the steps in using the unit so residents should not be afraid to use the device should a cardiac arrest situation arise.
“It is very advanced technology,” Keswani said of AEDs. “People just need to be familiar with the process to take in an emergency.”
Kevin Beese is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.