Seniors at Lehighton Area High School were recently taught a critical lifesaving skill.

Lehighton Ambulance team members taught Hands-Only CPR to the Class of 2021 last week.

The skill was taught to about 170 seniors at once, according to Dawn Benner, public relations co-coordinator of the Lehighton Ambulance Association.

Benner said 186 mannequins were set up in the school, and about 15 instructors who taught the Hands-Only CPR, which has been approved by the American Heart Association.

“The students did really well; some of them were very inquisitive of what we were doing and asking questions of how things worked, make sure they were doing things appropriately,” Benner said. “Overall, the (school) principal was very impressed the students took to it as they did.”

“Lehighton Ambulance is part of the Core Initiative that is part of a bunch of the organizations in the Lehigh Valley area that are reaching out to the community to teach Hands-Only CPR to promote survival for cardiac arrest,” she said. “It’s been a really good program, and we’re hoping we can do it full force next with Hands-Only and Stop the Bleed.”

Benner said the organization started the program last year, as it went to local schools in Carbon County to teach senior classes Hands-Only CPR once Gov. Tom Wolf made it a graduation requirement.

However, this year, she said they were only able to do Lehighton High School since they were not able to do Stop the Bleed because they couldn’t use the same resources between students.

“We would like to thank Lehighton High School administrators and the seniors for an excellent job,” Benner said.

Benner said that over the last year and a half, the organization has taught over 1,000 student Hands-Only CPR and about 800 students Stop the Bleed as she explained the primary benefit of the critical lifesaving skill.

“Our main goal is to promote the health and wellness of the community, and provide survival and get CPR initiated as soon as possible,” she said. “We’re trying to get the schools to stimulate that interest to the younger generation so they can sign up for EMT classes, (which) wouldn’t have been able to be done without the Core Initiative.”

For more information on CPR classes or education, contact the Lehighton Ambulance at CPR@lehightonambulance.org.