Islanders ‘should have confidence to perform CPR’

The 29-year-old midfielder collapsed during the match against Finland, suffering a cardiac arrest. Millions of people across the world watched as medics rushed onto the pitch and conducted CPR.

Mrs Langlois said that for many, this would be their first time seeing the procedure performed.

‘I definitely think it’s really important,’ she said.

‘People can go their entire lives and not see CPR done in real time or in real life. You see it on TV and movies and that can be very dramatised. What happened on Saturday

was really difficult to watch.’

But she hoped that people seeing it really taking place might give people an idea of what CPR really looks like and that might give them to confidence to do it, if they needed to.

While CPR is regularly carried out by ambulance and hospital staff, it is relatively rare for the public to need to step in. But there have been occasions locally where islanders have saved people lives with CPR. One example was Rick Denton, who collapsed at Les Cotils and was saved by bystanders,who knew CPR.

Mrs Langlois said it was important that people were confident to quickly do CPR, as each minute without can see chances of survival decrease by between 7% and 10%.

While Guernsey’s ambulance response times are very good, Mrs Langlois said it was still so important that islanders could help, as every minute was important.

‘CPR is a simple but life-saving skill and we think everyone should learn it,’ she said.

‘If a heart has stopped beating normally early defibrillation with an AED is also important. AEDs are safe and simple to use, even without training. There are now lots of them around the island in public places. St John would encourage everyone to familiarise themselves with the location of AEDs

and be confident to use one.’

During the pandemic people are being told not to do mouth-to-mouth, but instead just do compressions.

Christian Eriksen is in hospital, but is said to be improving.