California high schoolers will be required to take CPR classes

More than 380,000 heart attacks occur annually outside a hospital, but in two-thirds of those cases, the victims don’t receive CPR.

Now a new law in California will require high schoolers to learn those skills in hopes they might one day save a life.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law Saturday that now mandates a CPR component in high schools where health classes are required to graduate, starting with the 2018-2019 school year. The previous law had given schools the choice to substitute a first aid component in those classes instead.

According to the American Heart Association, only 30 percent of Americans are trained to administer CPR in an emergency and about 32 percent of heart attack victims get CPR when a cardiac emergency occurs. The association trains millions of people a year and spokeswoman Robin Swanson told NBC that the lesson folded into future health classes would teach CPR skills in half an hour.

The course would also encourage schools to teach students how to use an automated external defibrillator, though it does not require schools to purchase a unit.

NBC reported that the new law makes California the 35th state to require CPR education in schools.

State Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona), who sponsored the bill and worked for decades as an emergency medical technician, applauded its passage.

“CPR is one of the most important life skills a person can have,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “By teaching CPR in high school, we are sending students into the world with essential, life-saving skills.”

This story was originally published September 27, 2016 at 11:09 AM with the headline "California high schoolers will be required to take CPR classes."