CPR is an important skill for both adults and kids alike.

Training can make all the difference in some of life’s scarier situations.

What You Need To Know

  • A Newburgh Free Academy student utilized CPR skills learned in the school's nursing program in an unexpected situation

  • In 2019, the Career and Technical Education Technical Assistance Center of New York gave Newburgh Free Academy North’s Nurse Aide Program model recognition, meaning it serves as a model to share with other schools and BOCES around the state

  • The Newburgh Enlarged City School District plans to teach as many students, faculty and staff as they can basic lifesaving skills throughout May

It was just another day for Sahir Justil, a senior at Newburgh Free Academy (NFA) North, and his friends, but then the group spotted something unusual. 

A distressed driver stepped out of their car and collapsed.

“That's when I noticed her face was turning blue, and the last thing she said was, ‘help,’ before falling unconscious,” Justil said.

Justil quickly sprang into action. He made sure his friends blocked the road with the car and called 911 while checking to see if the driver was responsive.

Justil then began CPR, teaching his friends how to do so to be able to switch off.

“I was just knowing what to do, really, just trying to get everything under control, telling them to, ‘it's OK. Like, let's just focus on helping her,’” Justil said.

The students alerted school staff and security who assisted until first responders arrived and took over.

Justil credits his response instincts to what he’s learned through his school’s Nurse Aide Program, which is open to students in grades 10 through 12 interested in health care.

“It's very useful because if anybody were just to collapse because of anything, it would be very useful that you have this technique under your brain, so you can use it,” Justil said.

Math teacher at NFA Main Andrea Doddo knows the importance of this all too well. Ten years ago, she collapsed after suddenly not feeling well on school property. Other faculty and staff members immediately responded, administering CPR and shocking her with an automated external defibrillator (AED).

“I am so lucky I had people around when it happened,” Doddo said. “They call me a miracle just because not only of my survival, but the fact that I survived without any lingering effects.”

After going into sudden cardiac arrest, she stresses the need to teach both students and adults CPR and other response skills and continues to do so a decade later.

“Nowadays, you hear more and more so many people, including students and children, that have had cardiac arrest or heart attacks, where the best course of action, they say, is the hands only CPR, the quicker the better, and how vital the AED is for survival,” Doddo said.

While he hopes not to have to use the skills again, Justil knows he is capable of immediately helping those around him should he find himself in a similar situation to the one he was in last fall.

“Just practicing more, being better at it, getting more knowledge into helping other people, ‘cause it's better to know more than to just know what you know right now,” Justil said.

In 2019, the Career and Technical Education Technical Assistance Center (CTE TAC) of New York gave Newburgh Free Academy North’s Nurse Aide Program model recognition, which means it serves as a model to share with other schools and BOCES around the state.

The Newburgh Enlarged City School District plans to teach as many students, faculty and staff as they can basic lifesaving skills throughout the month of May.