City of Arlington Goes for World Record in CPR Training
Guinness Officials Set to Validate Record-Breaking Effort on
Nov. 17
Oslo, Norway holds a Guinness World Record for the largest
CPR training session with 3,692 participants. At 11 a.m.
Tuesday, Nov. 17, Arlington will attempt to surpass that
mark when approximately 4,500 eighth-graders converge on
Cowboys Stadium to learn cardio-pulmonary resuscitation
techniques as part of a citywide initiative called CPaRlington.
Organizers have invited every Arlington Independent School
District eighth-grader to participate in this massive
training exercise. A Guinness World Records official
adjudicator will be present to witness the event and
validate the achievement, according to Battalion Chief of
Medical Operations David Carroll with the Arlington Fire
Department.
“Being able to train more people in one session than anyone
else in the world is certainly noteworthy, and we’ll be
proud of that,” said Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck. “But
we’re not losing sight of the fact that this initiative
really is a matter of life and death. The best way to
increase survival rates for cardiac arrest victims is to
equip bystanders with the knowledge of administering CPR.”
CPaRlington began in 2005 when Mayor Cluck, a physician, met
with representatives of the American Heart Association
(AHA), Arlington Fire Department and the UT-Arlington School
of Nursing to discuss an initiative that could improve
cardiac arrest survival. While normal certification for CPR
requires a six-to eight-hour commitment, one can learn to
administer emergency CPR in only 22 minutes.
Since the program began, approximately 25,140 Arlington
residents have been trained.
This world record training event won’t be the first time the
City of Arlington has led CPR on a large scale. In April
2006, the CPaRlington “First Pitch” event resulted in more
than 200 people learning CPR in one afternoon in the
outfield of the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.
Media Notice: Excellent video and photo opportunities of
large-scale training exercise in Cowboys Stadium.
