Paul Ego learns the basics of CPR

How do you get across a very, very serious message about life and death? You get a comedian to make a video about it!

Following the success of his previous two health messages (about sudden cardiac arrest and AEDs), NZ funnyman Paul Ego has once again teamed up with NZ company Heart Saver and come up trumps. In his latest video he learns about the basics of CPR from Heart Saver managing director, Mike Mander.

Paul has personal experience with CPR and using an AED (automated external defibrillator). In 1997, his wife suffered a sudden cardiac arrest, aged just 30. They were at home together and thankfully the paramedics turned up in time. “Or I would have lost her that night,” he says.

In this latest video, Paul and Mike emphasise that cardiac arrest can happen to anybody – no matter what shape they’re in or how old they are. They share the symptoms of cardiac arrest, the difference between a heart attack and cardiac arrest, how to perform CPR, and a song recommendation you can hum to keep your compressions at the right pace.

“We are on a mission to save lives,” says Mike Mander, owner of Heart Saver and a volunteer firefighter of twenty years. “Every year nearly 2000 Kiwis suffer a sudden cardiac arrest and around 1500 die from it. Twenty-one per cent of those happened in public. The faster a bystander can respond with early CPR and the use of an AED, the better chance they have of surviving. For every minute without CPR or defibrillation, a patient’s chance of survival falls by 10-15%.”

To further their quest to spread the message about sudden cardiac arrest and the importance of AEDs, Heart Saver started the Heart Saver campaign, where they give away an AED to a community group each month. In June 2017, GrownUps and Cigna joined the campaign as partners so now there are two AEDs up for grabs each month. To enter your school, sports club, not for profit or community group, see www.heartsaver.co.nz