A new club this year is aimed at teaching high schoolers and middle schoolers about basic first aid. The Heartbeat Club will prepare students to handle real-life emergencies.
Lab students are not required to take any courses in first aid. When this came to the attention of junior Nutan Ganigara who was inspired while she was studying and writing about CPR.
“I was writing a paper about it, then I got the idea to start a club and just started from there,” Nutan said.
Nutan approached junior Perla Lais, who is CPR-qualified, as a co-founder. Perla got her CPR qualification while taking U-High’s lifeguarding course.
The Heartbeat Club meets on Mondays at lunch in C-308 with faculty adviser Dan Dyra.
Nutan and Perla said they hope to organize a blood drive around Valentine’s Day for the high school in association with the American Red Cross in response to the national blood shortage.
Nutan and Perla also hope to host an assembly in the middle school to teach first aid to younger members of the Lab community as well as how to use an automated external defibrillator, an AED, so that by the time they reach high school, students would be well-acquainted with the device.
Nutan said, “It would be beneficial to teach it to middle schoolers so that they have a better understanding of how it works.”
