KUCHING: Malaysian Red Crescent (MRC) Sarawak Chapter was invited to present a talk on ‘Emergency Responses’ at SMK Matang Jaya here yesterday morning.
Held in conjunction with Padawan Education Department’s Open Day, the talk was presented by Chew Kim Soon who is the chairperson of the Disaster Management and Humanitarian Support Committee of MRC Sarawak Chapter as well as deputy chairperson of MRC Stampin branch.
Chew, who has been actively involved in activities of the humanitarian organisation for more than 30 years, emphasised on the importance of ‘Bystander particularly cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)’ namely hands only CPR rendered by a non-medical trained bystander to a cardiac arrest patient.
According to medical statistics, he pointed out that cardiac arrest remains as the top silent killer in the nation as out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) cases doubled during various phases of movement control order (MCO) lockdown periods during the last two years.
“The survival of an OHCA patient highly dependent on the CPR assistance rendered by bystanders as irreversible brain damage may starts to set in after four to six minutes and brain deaths may occur after 10 minutes without oxygen supply to the brain.
“As average ambulance respond time is approximately 15 minutes, an OHCA patient just simply does not have the luxury of time.
“A bystander that is willing to provide CPR might be the patient only hope of survival before the arrival of paramedics,” he said.
Chew called on members of the public to attach great importance on acquiring knowledge on first aid, CPR, and automatic external defibrillator (AED) as these might save life of someone they know.
He expressed hope for educators to appreciate the importance of education on emergency response and to integrate it into the existing education system.
“This is to create awareness among students on disasters so they can remain calm when facing unexpected circumstances and escape from harm safely,” he said.
