'You can save a life': Louisiana firefighters teach children lifesaving skills

Before 2019, the St. George Fire Department frequently sent firefighters to out-of-state conferences for specialized training and updated basic training. When they returned, the firefighters began to think about smaller stations that couldn't afford to send officers to faraway training. 

The solution? Offer programs locally. 

The Louisiana Firefighters Foundation was established in 2019 to offer specialized training, including teaching children life-saving skills in emergencies. 

“A couple of our guys came back from one of the major conferences in the country, and they said, ‘We can do this here.’ So that's pretty much what started it,” said Meg Kling, St. George Fire Department public education officer and director of social media and branding for the foundation.

Five years later, the foundation includes members from different departments across the Baton Rouge area and has partnerships throughout the state. Multiple classes are offered by the foundation, including state-mandated training opportunities for promotions.

Along with offering resources to first responders, the foundation also focuses on the “community risk reduction factor,” Kling said.

“Most people don't know what to do in the first five minutes of an emergency,” Kling said. “So we started diving deeper, and we realized that the word ‘CPR,’ the word ‘AED,’ ‘bleeding control,’ all of these things were kind of taboo. People were afraid to do CPR.”

To empower the community, the foundation began offering free educational courses that equip residents with lifesaving skills. One program, Safe & In Charge: Sitter Superstars, has taught basic safety skills to more than 225 middle schoolers.

In December 2022, the foundation offered a program similar to Safe & In Charge under a different name, using a format from another organization. The program was revamped in January to be more hands-on for students, Kling said.

Despite the name, students learn more than just babysitting skills, Kling said. The program covers basic CPR, first aid and choking, along with basic life safety, child care and business skills.

“This age specifically, from what I've seen, these are the kids that are actually going to go home. … They're going to talk about safety measures, and they're actually going to use them,” Kling said. “They're the kids that are going to go out and if something bad happens, this is going to equip them with what they need.”

During the class, students practice the skills by interacting with each other and use mannequins to learn how to perform CPR on infants and adults.

The more people who take the class and learn the skills, the more lives can be saved, Kling said. 

“If you start CPR within the first five minutes of somebody going down, you have a 30% chance of bringing them back,” she added.

First responders and teachers instruct the program during a 6.5-hour weekend class, limited to around 25 students. The free course is sponsored by Healthy Blue and The Safety Place, and usually takes place once a month at the Foundation’s building at 4156 W. E. Heck Court, Baton Rouge. 

At the end of the program, students receive a certificate and a “swag bag of necessities for being safe and in charge,” Kling said.

Because the program teaches hands-only CPR, students do not get CPR certified, but the skills are still effective enough to save a life, she said.

“CPR is most important to me, because I've seen it firsthand as a firefighter also, that within the first five minutes, you can save a life,” Kling said. “We have people we want to be able to not only send out into the world and be productive members of society, we want to send them out to take care of others.”

The next Safe & In Charge class is July 13 at the foundation’s building. Another class will be hosted by the Central School Board in August. Parents can sign children up for Safe & In Charge or view other programs at louisianafirefighters.com.