Sherry Luehr-Kirk demonstrating CPR

Regardless of gender or race, heart disease and stroke are the number-one killers in the United States each year. Sherry Luehr-Kirk, chairman of the American Heart Association, Houston Division, explains, “If you look at many causes of death—cancer, AIDS, pneumonia, accidents, suicides—a big pile of things still don’t equal the number of people who die of heart disease and stroke each year.”

Until the Houston Division of the American Heart Association initiated Operation Heartbeat to help Houstonians save lives, only few people could perform CPR, and barely anyone knew what a defibrillator was. Ms. Luehr-Kirk says, “Through Operation Heartbeat we hope to reduce death and disability from heart disease and stroke by 25 percent by the year 2010. The chain of survival has four links in it, and if we can get people just through the first two or three within several minutes of an episode, then those people will live productive lives. If not, they become incapacitated or die.”

Calling 911 or dialing zero is the first step. “You’ve got to get professional help on the way or too much time will elapse,” explains Ms. Luehr-Kirk. “Second in the chain is quick access to CPR. If a person has experienced sudden cardiac arrest and isn’t breathing or doesn’t have a pulse, someone has got to move oxygen into the blood and into the body to keep the organs alive and sustain life.”

The third link is defibrillation. “When these folks collapse on the floor, their heart typically goes into a rhythm called ventricular fibrillation,” explains Ms. Luehr-Kirk. “The only cure for fibrillation is defibrillation. So while CPR must be performed to keep the organs going, it won’t actually make the heart start beating again. That requires defibrillation and it must be done quickly with a device that is very safe and easy to use.

“The fourth link is advanced care, which means getting to a hospital that’s set up to handle these kinds of emergencies,” Ms. Leuhr-Kirk concludes. “But the first three links are probably the most critical. If these can be accomplished quickly, most people will
be saved most of the time.”

The Houston Division is teaching this life-saving information to citizens by conducting mass training programs at the Astrodome and the George R. Brown Convention Center, by providing information at various sports events and health fairs and by sending volunteers to train smaller groups of people in office buildings and community centers. Health care workers learn the information at annual meetings, seminars and continuing education classes. And thanks to the Houston Division’s efforts with the Texas legislature, high school students now are required to learn CPR before graduation. Today almost 30 percent of the people living in the greater Houston area know CPR, and defibrillators can be found in every city-owned building, in many office buildings and hotels and on fire trucks.

Ms. Luehr-Kirk says, “CPR keeps organs alive. It moves oxygen and blood around the body so organs can live. But a defibrillator is as important as performing CPR. For every minute your heart is fibrillating, your chance for survival decreases 10 percent. So if it takes five minutes and a person is lying there and no one knows CPR or has access to a defibrillator, then a life will most likely be lost that could have been saved.”

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