Phone CPR training saves lives in Charles attempting to expand statewide

Tony Rose, the chief of 911 for Charles County, was given unanimous permission from the Charles County commissioners on Feb. 28 to go to Annapolis and testify on behalf of House Bill 1092.

House Bill 1092 would require the Maryland 911 Board to establish training standards for public safety answering point personnel concerning telecommunications CPR and alter the purposes of the 911 Trust Fund to include funding the costs of certain telecommunications CPR training.

“When an out-of-hospital cardiac emergency occurs, you have about 600 seconds —10 minutes — to make a difference to save a life before irreversible brain death occurs,” Rose said.

In 2019, Rose learned of a new program to help change the way education is delivered to 911 call center operators.

Rose jumped on the opportunity and immediately brought in a specialist to evaluate current telecommunications personnel.

“It was all over the board,” Rose said referring to answers about the last time 911 operators had given over-the-phone CPR. “Some had it done it yesterday, some had never done it.”

The new program requires a virtual training scenario every three months, according to Rose. During the training, operators are subject to challenging scenarios to help provide CPR instructions more proficiently.

“The results have been phenomenal,” Rose said. “We have doubled, and in some cases tripled, the number of survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Charles County. They’re walking out of a hospital after they’ve stopped breathing.”

“We also reported that we had improved the application of bystander CPR from 27% to 43%, improved bystander application of an AED from 23.5% to 28.6% and saw the number of survivors that were discharged from the hospital increase from five to eleven,” a written testimony Rose provided to the board said.

“It reminds me of an incident when I used to coach soccer,” Commissioner Ralph E. Patterson II (D) said. “We had a cardiac arrest incident.”

Patterson recalled how the operator he talked to was calm and helped guide those present through the situation, underscoring the importance of legislation like House Bill 1092.

“Currently, Charles County is the only jurisdiction that participates in this program,” Rose said. “This bill would make it mandatory for 911 centers to provide, not necessarily this particular program, but one similar to it.”