Slowly but surely, Forest Lake is becoming a safer community, thanks to a partnership program between the Forest Lake Fire Department, Police Department and Lions Club. Fire Chief Alan Newman is confident that the program, a free, hour-and-15-minute-long class training attendees in hands-only CPR and the use of an automated external defibrillator, will result in more area residents surviving cardiac arrests.
“We’ve a couple in the last six months where a bystander implemented chest compressions and an AED and saved people,” he said. Though the department hasn’t heard from those people if they took the Forest Lake class or learned the technique elsewhere, Newman believes the proliferation of local residents with those skills means it’s only a matter of time until someone who has taken the class will be called upon to use their knowledge.