If your Valentine goes into cardiac arrest during dinner, Austin-Travis County EMS wants you to know how to help.
Austin-Travis County EMS is hosting free, hands-only CPR training sessions at Barton Creek Square mall from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. today.
EMS is trying to improve the bystander CPR rate in Austin. According to the American Heart Association, four out of five cardiac arrests happen at home, often to people with no previous heart conditions or other health risks.
When CPR is performed immediately after a cardiac arrest by a bystander, a victim's survival rate can triple. But only 32 percent of people with sudden cardiac arrest receive CPR from a bystander.
Today's Save a SweetHEARTevent is part of EMS's new initiative TAKE 10 which seeks to train people how to perform compression-only CPR in less than 10 minutes.
Lisa Sepulveda, Austin-Travis County EMS Communication Relations said the compression-only CPR is just as effective as mouth-to-moth.
"It's really more important to just jump in and do a compression-only CPR technique," Sepulveda said. "You can't hurt anyone by doing chest-compression CPR."
Additional TAKE 10 CPR training will be provided at Grace Outreach Community Church, Shoreline Christian Center and Northwest Recreation Center on Feb 16.
