By Michael GsovskiThe Daily Northwestern
Ten people sat inside Lindgren Hall one recent Friday, taking turns placing stethoscopes on each other’s arms.
The executive board of the Northwestern Emergency Medical Organization – a new group dedicated to learning the skills necessary to respond to medical emergencies – was learning how to check a person’s blood pressure, one of six vital signs.
McCormick sophomore Andrew Cuming, the group’s founder and president, said these skills are ones everyone should know.
“If you stop breathing, you are going to be dead within about four-and-a-half minutes,” Cuming said. “We’ve all (emergency medical technicians) responded to CPR problems before, we’ve been there within 10, 15 minutes and that person’s dead.”
A group of trained students could be even more effective than traditional forms of emergency response on NU’s Evanston campus, Cuming said.
“The perfect response (time) of Evanston (Emergency Medical Squad) is six minutes,” Cuming said. “I feel as though I can get anywhere on North Campus within two minutes and be treating someone in a minute of that. Evanston EMS won’t necessarily know where they’re going. “
Cuming and group Vice President Caroline Na plan to become certified to teach others how to perform CPR and use an Automatic External Defibrillator. Then they plan to help other people earn their certifications.
“I guess the whole idea is to have more people certified … so that if something does happen to someone on campus, their chance of survival will be greater,” said Na, a Communication junior.
Recruiting has not been a challenge, with more than 100 members now in the group.
Finding enough equipment will be slightly more difficult, Na said.
“We need a lot,” said Michael Schneider, the group’s equipment director and a McCormick sophomore. “We need CPR stuff, splints, vital-taking equipment, just to help people get basic skills down.”
While a recent grant from the Residential Housing Association has provided the group with enough money to begin buying equipment, more funds are needed. To raise that money, the group has explored soliciting donations from parents and wealthy alumni and selling advertising space on T-shirts to local businesses.
The group’s ultimate goal is to establish a system in which the group’s members could respond to emergency calls directly. Before this happens, though, group members will have to undergo the rigorous EMT certification process, a command center will have to be established to properly route emergency calls and the legal liabilities would need to be negotiated with the university.
Although the work takes several hours of his time daily, Cuming said he doesn’t mind.
“What’s the value of a human life?” Cuming said. “I’d say it’s worth a number of hours of my time at least, and I’d say it’s worth anyone taking two or three hours every two weeks to learn some skills that keep somebody alive.”
Reach Michael Gsovski at [email protected].
