Helping others to save lives with CPR: Apple Honda presents training unit to RFD

Apple Honda presented a special CPR training unit to the Riverhead Fire Department at department headquarters this morning.

The “Resusci Anne” CPR training unit will be used by the Riverhead Fire Department to train its members and local residents on the correct way to perform CPR, Riverhead Fire Department Chief Joseph Raynor said.

The purpose of CPR, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, is to manually preserve brain function in a person suffering a cardiac arrest until further measures to restore spontaneous breathing and blood circulation can be administered, according to the American Heart Association. CPR involves chest compressions at a rate of at least 100 per minute to pump blood through the heart and the body. CPR by itself is not likely to restart the heart; it is intended to restore partial blood flow to the brain and heart, delaying tissue death.

The American Heart Association is calling on all Americans to learn how to give CPR and has produced an instructional one-minute video. Nearly 383,000 out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrests happen each year

The training unit, worth $5,000, was donated by the National Automobile Dealers Association Charitable Foundation. Apple Honda owner Irwin Garsten is a board member of the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association, which administers CPR donations for the national foundation.

Franchised auto dealers have donated thousands of CPR training units worth more than $2 million nationwide since 1975; more than 1 million people have been trained as a result.

About ‘Resusci Anne’

The “Resusci Anne” unit was first built in 1960 by toymaker Asmund Laerdal at the request of the doctor that developed the CPR technique in the mid-1950s. The face Laerdal used for his training dummy was that of the death mask of an unknown Parisian girl whose body was pulled from the River Siene in Paris in the late 1880s.

“The young girl’s delicate beauty and smile added to the enigma of her death, which inspired stories and poetry of her demise, thought to be from suicide to escape an unrequited love. The story of L’Inconnue de la Seine (“The Unknown of the Seine”) became popular throughout Europe, as did reproductions of her death mask,” according to the National EMS Museum website.

Laerdal knew the story of the death mask of “The Unknown of the Seine” and thought her delicate beauty and features were perfect for the purpose of the mannequin. He kept the name of a popular toy doll he was successfully manufacturing, and named it “Rescusci Anne.”

Laerdal’s company became a major manufacturer of first aid training equipment, a role it fills to this day. Today Laerdal Medical employs 1,400 people in 23 countries around the world. “Rescusci Anne.”