Apple Honda presents CPR training unit to Wading River Fire Department

Apple Honda presented a special CPR training unit to the Wading River Fire Department at department headquarters Friday morning.

The “Resusci Anne” CPR training unit — a full-size, specially equipped mannequin — will be used by the Wading River Fire Department to train its members on the correct way to perform CPR, Wading River Fire Department Chief Mark Donnelly said.

“It’s a great training opportunity for our members,” Donnelly said.

The purpose of CPR, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, is to manually preserve brain function in a person suffering a cardiac arrest until further measures to restore spontaneous breathing and blood circulation can be administered, according to the American Heart Association. CPR involves chest compressions at a rate of at least 100 per minute to pump blood through the heart and the body. CPR by itself is not likely to restart the heart; it is intended to restore partial blood flow to the brain and heart, delaying tissue death.

The training unit, worth $11,000, was donated by the National Automobile Dealers Association Charitable Foundation.

“We get to do one donation a year,” Apple Honda general manager Bill Fields said Friday. Apple presented a “Resusci Anne” unit to the Riverhead Fire Department last year. “Any other local fire departments interested in one should contact me,” he said.

Franchised auto dealers have donated thousands of CPR training units worth more than $2 million nationwide since 1975; more than 1 million people have been trained as a result.

“We’re trying to educate the public in regard to resuscitation and how important that is,” Fields said. “And of course we’re happy to support local fire departments.”
About Resusci Anne

The “Resusci Anne” unit was first built in 1960 by toy maker Asmund Laerdal at the request of the doctor that developed the CPR technique in the mid-1950s. The face Laerdal used for his training dummy was that of the death mask of an unknown Parisian girl whose body was pulled from the River Siene in Paris in the late 1880s.

“The young girl’s delicate beauty and smile added to the enigma of her death, which inspired stories and poetry of her demise, thought to be from suicide to escape an unrequited love. The story of L’Inconnue de la Seine (“The Unknown of the Seine”) became popular throughout Europe, as did reproductions of her death mask,” according to the National EMS Museum website.

Laerdal knew the story of the death mask of “The Unknown of the Seine” and thought her delicate beauty and features were perfect for the purpose of the mannequin. He kept the name of a popular toy doll he was successfully manufacturing, and named it “Rescusci Anne.”

Laerdal’s company became a major manufacturer of first aid training equipment, a role it fills to this day. Today Laerdal Medical employs 1,400 people in 23 countries around the world. “Rescusci Anne.”

The American Heart Association is calling on all Americans to learn how to give CPR and has produced an instructional one-minute video. Nearly 383,000 out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrests happen each year.

Top photo caption: Apple Honda presented a CPR training unit to Wading River Fire Department Friday morning. Apple general manager Bill Fields, second from right, made the presentation to Wading River Fire Department Chief Mark Donnelly, second from left, and Assistant Chief Tony Bitalvo, left. Also pictured: John Galla, left, representing Assemblyman Anthony Palumbo.   Photo: Denise Civiletti