News Reporter
On Saturday, the Graduate Education and Medical Sciences club (GEMS) hosted its annual Save a Life Day and certified 45 people in first aid, CPR and AED for adults, infants and children.
The members of GEMS taught the free event.
“Most members are certified CPR instructors,” President of GEMS Sarah Wood said.
Even though only 45 of the 70 people who signed up came to Save a Life Day, Wood and Vice President of GEMS, Mia Franco, were happy with the turnout. Last year, only 17 people came to be certified.
“It’s definitely nice to run a little smoother this year,” Wood said.
With the potential of 70 people, Franco and Wood worked frantically to get extra supplies.
“I called Red Cross asking for mannequins, and we took every single mannequin the nursing department had,” Wood said.
The event not only taught attendees basic first aid strategies and different methods of CPR for different ages, but also what to do in other breathing emergencies and how to deal with strokes, cardiac issues and allergies.
The growth in GEMS goes past Save a Life Day. According to Wood, last year’s weekly meetings had four to five people each week, not including officers. This year, the first meeting started with 40 people and has had an average attendance of 20 people every week.
“GEMS took a nosedive in 2008 and 2009,” Wood said.
Wood explained that she and Franco wanted to get involved and bring energy back to the club.
Franco agreed and said that they pushed GEMS to make a difference and pull people in.
Hosting Save a Life Day every semester gets the GEMS name out around campus. She and Franco have both been involved with Save a Life Day for three semesters, but it was an established event before that.
The event is funded by FAC funds and gives medical students another way to give back to the community.
“We can put [students] on the right track, point them in the right direction,” Franco said.
GEMS wants to continue to offer medical students the chance to head the right way. Franco said that doctors around the Grand Valley have offered to have club members shadow them.
“Sometimes you have to risk hearing ‘no,’” Franco said.
“But we heard yes,” Wood added.
Franco and Wood hope to see even more people join GEMS in the future and are encouraging students to come next semester to the next Save a Life Day.
kirick@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
Just for clarification it was the kinesiology department who where generous enough to let us use their manikins and not the nursing department.