REGINA – A program aimed at helping students learn lifesaving CPR skills is being expanded across the province starting this fall.
Beginning in September for the 2026-27 school the Ministry of Education and the Heart & Stroke Foundation will introduce CardiacCrash in the classrooms. It will be offered to all school divisions, with the Heart & Stroke Foundation providing teacher training and learning materials to those participating.
At the announcement at the Legislature, Minister of Education Everett Hindley said this will “help students to learn hands-on, only CPR, as well as automated external defibrillator AED use in an interactive way.”
“By teaching students the CardiacCrash program, we're giving them the knowledge and confidence to respond when every second does truly matter. These skills will stay with students for life and help protect our school communities by strengthening overall awareness in emergency situations.”
This expansion follows on the heels of its introduction in Good Spirit School Division, where the initiative has been well received by students there.
Hindley said he visited a school in Swift Current at Ecole Centennial that offered the program, and said those students were “absolutely dialed in. They were not looking at their phones or anything else. They were completely dialed in on what was on the video, and then being part of the interactive training that was happening right then and there.”
In addition to that, he said, “there were actually kids on the other side of the gym looking through the glass windows, and they were trying to see what was going on because it was, frankly, pretty cool that they were learning this. And so the feedback has just been absolutely positive and amazing. So, we're really looking forward to seeing this program expand across school divisions across Saskatchewan.”
The plan is to offer this is grades 8 and then in grade 10 and get it to as many schools as possible his fall.
Carolyn Cyr of the Heart & Stroke Foundation welcomes the news that this program is expanding cross the province.
“It really empowers young people in our province to have these life-saving skills and to know how to respond to a cardiac arrest emergency and save a life. And we're thrilled to have a role in supporting that to schools and students across the province.”
Cyr said that based on the work they have done, they realized that CPR education has been “accessible to some schools, but not every school. There's been a lot of disparities in that access. Sometimes it depends on whether schools and teachers have connections to paramedics or other organizations.”
“So our CardiacCrash Program helps to reduce those barriers to accessing CPR education to make sure that it's available across the province to any student. It's not meant to be the full CPR certification, but rather teaches students the very basics of how to do CPR, how to use an AED and how to save a life.”
She said the skills learned are “life-saving skills. There's lots of evidence out there that demonstrates the impacts of this in improving cardiac arrest survival rates, improving outcomes, and there's a ripple effect as well. Students learn these skills, they bring that home, they share it with their families. We've heard lots of stories about students who learn how to do CPR, and it intrigues them to pursue a career in healthcare.”
Paul Hills, a paramedic in Saskatoon, welcomes the opportunity for more young people to learn CPR skills.
“It's one of those foundational skills that actually impact lives and lives saved. If I look at the job that I do, it's a very important role that I play in health care as well as survivability of those on hospital cardiac arrest to the hospital. But that early CPR, early AED, early defibrillation is paramount.”
He said CPR is one of the “foundational skills that we still train on yearly as paramedics, as firefighters, as first responders is CPR. We're very coordinated in what we do, and high-efficiency CPR pays off. Any CPR is better than no CPR. And having that courage and having that awareness and having that compatibility of exposure to it in a young age will only benefit our communities as those kids grow up and grow out and, you know, we have that next generation of lifesavers out there.”
Jory Meyer had a personal story to share about how he utilized CPR on his dad to help save his life.
“I was out for a walk with my dad. He's in his late 60s, and partway through our walk he started to experience some shortness of breath, and then it got progressively worse,” he said.
“And as his symptoms were worsening, I called 911. While I was on the phone with 911, he collapsed at that time. And then I was able to initiate CPR, and thankfully the EMS was, we were actually quite close to the hospital in Shaunavon, just where the walking trail is, and thankfully the EMS was able to respond within a few minutes, too, which I think made a really big difference in our situation.”
Meyer said he took his first first aid and CPR course when in high school. He feels the training will be of benefit to students who might find themselves in a similar situation.
“That survival rate of out-of-hospitals cardiac arrest is really low, and that first step is the bystander CPR, so the more people that have that CPR training and education, the better likelihood that somebody's going to respond in an emergency, and hopefully that'll lead to a change in that statistic where there are more people surviving a cardiac arrest.”
