Around 50,000 pupils every year will be taught vital lifesaving skills in the classroom thanks to a national campaign.
Under the initiative all pupils will be taught basic resuscitation techniques before they leave secondary school.
The Nation of Lifesavers campaign, launched last year by British Heart Foundation Scotland, has now been backed by the country's 32 councils.
David McColgan, the organisation's senior policy manager, said: “We are absolutely overwhelmed by the response we have received to our campaign and delighted to have achieved our ambition in such a short space of time.
"To do so is testament to the support we have received from Scotland’s local authorities, wanting to work together to make a difference in their communities.
"Far too many lives are lost in this country when people suffer a cardiac arrest out of hospital, partly because too few bystanders have the expertise or confidence to perform resuscitation. Training pupils is key in helping to change this.”
Medical professionals said the campaign could have a significant impact on the nation’s poor survival rate from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, where currently only one in twelve people survive.
Dr Andy Lockey, vice-president of Resuscitation Council UK, said: “The achievements in securing such widespread support from councils to deliver CPR training as part of the school curricula are nothing short of amazing.
"We believe the widespread buy-in will reap huge dividends in terms of survival rates in the years to come."
The news came as a father told how his life was saved by his son’s football referee after his heart stopped beating for 25 minutes on the pitch sidelines.
Allan Easdale was watching Kyle, then 14, in a youth tournament on Easter Monday when he suffered a cardiac arrest and fell to the ground next to wife Hazel.
Luckily, the man refereeing was Ewan Hamilton, a 21-year-old Glasgow medical student who had learned CPR only a week earlier.
Mr Hamilton performed chest compressions for 25 minutes before the ambulance arrived. Mr Easdale was then shocked five times with a defibrillator before he opened his eyes and said: “Where am I?”
Mr Easdale said: “It’s a proper save a life story. I shudder to think what would have happened if he hadn’t been there. It took courage to do what Ewan did.”
Mr Hamilton, who now works as a consultant in emergency medicine at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, said the incident meant more to him than all his medical achievements.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel