By Yvette Urrea Moe, County of San Diego Communications Office
Oct. 16, 2025 | 9:25 AM
Reading Time: 2 minutes
The idea of having to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on someone who is not breathing, whether it’s a stranger or someone you know, makes most people feel uncertain about their ability to help.
But if someone you love needs CPR, you wouldn’t want anyone to delay in starting the lifesaving measure.
That’s why a group of Emergency Medical Services Corp students did not hesitate to volunteer to help teach people hands-only CPR, with supervision by CAL FIRE/County Fire firefighters and paramedics, this week as part of a Revive and Survive free public training event in Kearny Mesa.
The students, who are from traditionally under-served communities, are participating in a free Emergency Medical Technician program offered by the County.
The County and UC San Diego partner to implement Revive & Survive San Diego to train 1 million San Diegans on how to perform hands-only CPR for people in cardiac arrest.
“We’re here to help train the public on compression CPR,” said Nick Bye-Carnes, EMS Corps program manager. “The sooner you get someone to do compression CPR, the higher the person’s chances are for survival. I want our EMS Corps students to get to the point where they can teach it and be a community service at the same time.”
Hands-only CPR involves chest compressions at 100 beats to 120 beats per minute without using mouth-to-mouth breathing. If someone can perform this before medical professionals arrive, it vastly increases a person’s likelihood of survival.
Brain death starts to occur four to six minutes after someone experiences cardiac arrest if there is no CPR and defibrillation during that time. For every minute CPR is delayed, survival from cardiac arrest decreases by 7% to 10%.
Twenty-five people, comprised of members of the public and County employees, received training and practiced CPR on adult and infant training mannequins at the County Operations Center training event.
Since January 2024, the initiative has trained 655,441 people at 17,543 training events, said Colin King of San Diego County EMS.
Evelyn Villa, one of the student trainers, said it really is important for everyone to learn they can do this CPR, it’s not hard to do and not just professionals can help.
Christie Cosby said she heard about the event through social media and has been interested in learning how to do CPR.
“This is my first time ever doing this,” she said. “Now that I’ve practiced, I want to get certified.”
Yvette Urrea Moe is a communications specialist with the County of San Diego Communications Office.
