In conjunction with the national CPR week, the Red Cross will hold free CPR classes and hurricane preparedness sessions Saturday for those who are interested.
Karen Prohaska, health and safety service director for Red Cross, said they will offer three free CPR classes on Saturday at 8:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., which require registration. The classes, which will taught by a certified instructor, will last for 45 minutes to an hour.
Now in its fourth year, Prohaska said they have received a good response for the event because they have had the information circulating throughout the community for a while.
The first 100 people who sign up for the CPR class will receive a free CPR compression tool that is a Red Cross emergency vehicle. Registration will be open until Friday with a limit of 30 people per class.
The class is a non-certification program that will teach participants how to use compression CPR on a mannequin.
Prohaska said they are offering the CPR class in conjunction with hurricane preparedness, so individuals will be prepared for the upcoming hurricane season.
Celia Hill, family and consumer sciences extension agent for the Lee County Extension Office said she will offer an abundance of information about how to prepare for hurricanes.
She said she will also be talking a little bit about food safety and how to cook during a disaster.
A few sample recipes also will be offered, Hill said, with some things you can put together with items you may have on hand.
Some of the handouts she will provide will include safe handling of food and water in a hurricane, how to purify water safely and handle dry ice and what foods are OK to use and not use outside of refrigeration.
Hill said she also will provide a hurricane food supply shopping list that people can carry with them to the grocery store. The items on the list do not require cooking or refrigeration.
She said since hurricane season begins on Thursday, it is smart to start purchasing and looking at your food source now. It is good to buy little bit, by little bit, she said so it will less expensive when there is a threat.
A representative from the Lee Memorial Health System will also be present during the event to offer additional information.
Dr. Timothy Dougherty, medical director for disaster preparedness and toxicologist, said he will address the emergency medicine standpoint on hurricane preparedness.
He said the significant volume of injuries that the hospital sees occurs after the hurricane’s expected time frame because people go to a safe place during the hurricane.
“A lot of those are preventable if people use some common sense and some patience they would not get into that trouble,” Dougherty said.
He said they see people who received fractures and lacerations while preparing for a hurricane by boarding their windows and doors with plywood.
One of the big things with hurricanes, Dougherty said, is the number of injuries and deaths that occur after hurricanes. He said those occur because people are driving on the streets immediately after the storm before the street lights are working, driving through water or dealing with electrical wires.
“They survive the hurricane, but still end up dying,” Dougherty said.
Other information that he will share deals with generator safety, eating from the refrigerator when they should not and insect bites that occur after a hurricane.
Dougherty said the gamut of health information that he will provide will consist of before, during and after the storm.