GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Life-saving training took place at Lambeau Field Tuesday.
The Green Bay Packers and Bellin Health hosted the first CPR and Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) training sessions for the month of June.
This winter, the Packers pledged to fund $100,000 toward providing AEDs to eligible facilities in need.
It comes in response to the cardiac emergency experienced by Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin on the field last season.
Eighty organizations across Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula were selected to receive AED’s, as well as CPR training.
Packers director of community outreach/player alumni relations, Kathy Dworak, says there’s a need for AEDs for nonprofits and organizations, so they had to be selective.
“Lot of it determined in the number of people it’s going to serve because we wanted to make sure that it was a big pool of guests that would maybe be at a sporting event, so that was one of the biggest criteria’s, also nonprofits, school, sports entity because we are family, community-owned team,” Dworak said.
- For organizations seeking help obtaining an AED, a list of resources can be found here.
D.J. Sweet, a physical education teacher in Milwaukee was at the training; last year he experienced a situation with a student with asthma.
“All of a sudden she started experiencing asthma symptoms. It got worse and worse where she was barely conscious,” said Sweet. “We had to call the ambulance. She ended up being okay but it was close, and scary.”
Sweet said he’s excited to have the new equipment and to teach his colleagues how to use it.
There will be other training sessions held throughout the month of June where representatives from selected organizations will come pick up their AED and receive free training.
