Life-saving
efforts awarded
By
Jack Schneider
On-line Forty-Niner
Two
employees at the Student Health Center have
taken the initiative to make Cal State Long
Beach equipped for cardiac emergencies.
Throughout
the past year, the Center's emergency room
physician Dr. Christian Jagusch and clinical
coordinator Lawrence Harvey conducted training
sessions in using Automated External Defibrillator
for University Police and Student Health
Services.
In
order to be nominated for the award, the
CSU sends out certain criteria to each of
the 23 campuses.
Maryann
Rozanski, director of Safety and Risk Management
said qualifications of this award must not
be part of the person's routine schedule.
"They
have to go above and beyond what is called
for," Rozanski said.
Jagusch
and Harvey were honored Aug. 22 in Sacramento
for the Governor's Employee Safety Award
with their training of more than 80 employees
with the defibrillator.
"Dr.
Jigusch implemented procedures for the campus,"
Rozanski said. "Since the deployment
it has been used six times."
"In
2002, American College Health, Dr. Jagusch
and I received information on how to implement
procedures for campus in Washington D.C.,"
Harvey said.
In
addition to training officials at the Center,
Harvey and Jagusch set up training with
the University Police.
"We
trained the police officers with the use
of CPR along with risk and safety management
with training that lasted about eight hours,"
Harvey said.
University
Police Chief Jack Pearson, who nominated
the two employees for the award said the
training with defibrillators has helped
police officers with medical responses.
"When
[the officers] see anything revolving around
chest pain, they take the AEDs with them,"
Pearson said.
In
order to receive training at CSULB, Harvey
said he had to get approval from the Los
Angeles Emergency Medical Service Agency.
"Once
that was approved, we deployed four AEDs
received -- three to the police department
and one at health center," Harvey said.
Within
the first two weeks of receiving the AED,
Harvey said the first use of the AED was
at graduation ceremony, a grandmother watching
her grandson graduate, and was assisted
by medical professional Kandi Dubrall.
In
terms of uses, we utilized the AEDs
much more than any area of similar size,"
Harvey said.
University
College Extension Services has already put
a defibrillator and Harvey said he hopes
to see them more available to the public
in order to increase survival rates of victims
in cardiac arrest.
"If
you get to someone in two to three minutes
they have a 20 percent rate of survival,
without it, you have a survival rate of
five percent," Harvey said.
One
of last year's recipients was Greg Pascal,
communications director supervisor for University
Police, who said he performed CPR on a victim
near the engineering building.
Despite
the use and the extensive training with
defibrillators, Harvey said that campuses,
and communities around the nation are just
beginning to implement the device in emergency
routines.
"There
are other universities but it's not widespread,"
Harvey said. "More and more [public
places] are coming out with AEDs and they
are seeing the benefit."
In
the future, Harvey said he would like to
see defibrillators located in other high
volume places on campus including The Pyramid
and the Carpenter Performing Arts Center.
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