Over 100 Lawmakers & Staff Sign Up for CPR

Some Texas lawmakers and their staffs will be getting a course in CPR training, starting this week.

The Texas Society Anesthesiologists is organizing the training sessions, with help from the American Heart Association and the Seton Family of Hospitals.  State Rep. John Zerwas (R-Simonton) is an anestheologist and former society president.  He performed CPR on then-State Rep. Edmund Kuempel, after the Seguin Republican suffered a near-fatal heart attack and collapsed in a Capitol elevator during the 2009 legislative session. 

Rep. Kuempel died of another heart attack last November.

The training will include the Heart Association's CPR training and instruction on how to use an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED).  A member of the association's Texas State Advocacy Committee said in a news release that only eight percent of those who suffer sudden cardiac arrest outside of a medical facility survive.

Lt. Gov David Dewhurst, who presides over the state senate, praised the effort, noting how many people pass through the doors of the Capitol on a daily basis.