Photo Shutterstock That is why the student sports foundation SWU Thymos, the student volleyball club WaHo and the AED Foundation Wageningen jointly offer a course in CPOR for Wageningen student-athletes.
Dirk Wevers (24), a master’s student in Molecular Life Sciences and volleyball player with WaHo, recently took part in a reanimation course with the AED Foundation Wageningen. ‘The course organiser told me that there are too few people who know how to reanimate and are a member of HartslagNu, the Dutch reanimation alert system. Members are alerted if a person requires CPR near you. I decided to ask WaHo whether we could perhaps offer this course to more people.’
We decided to discuss the matter with the overarching sports foundation SWU Thymos. ‘To ensure that at least one person in each of the 32 student sports associations can follow the course’, Wevers says. He organises the courses with Thymos chair Janiek van de Rijdt (22). The two have already written to the student sports association, inviting them to enrol at least one member.
Two per cent
There is a severe shortage of civilian first responders, says Wevers. ‘Any given municipality aims to have about two per cent of the population able to perform CPR. Wageningen has a population of 40 thousand, which means 800 people are needed, while there are currently only 250 persons that know how to reanimate. Too few by far. If there are sufficient first responders, the chance that reanimation can commence within six minutes after a cardiac arrest is increased. This fast response time has a critical influence on whether or not a heart attack will have lasting effects. A HartslagNu network with proper coverage is in everyone’s interest.’
The course will take place four times (Tuesday, 12 September, Wednesday, 11 October, Friday, 17 November and Thursday, 7 December). One of the courses will be English spoken. There is room for a total of forty participants. ‘We must aim to reach 800 civilian first responders’, Wevers says. ‘We may organise more of these courses if all goes well.’
