GatorSavers met its goal of certifying 600 students in CPR with Automatic External Defibrillator training but failed to break its record of participants at this Saturday’s third annual event.
More than 800 people registered this year, about 100 more than in 2013. However, only 690 people actually came to participate.
The one-day event, hosted in the Reitz Union Grand Ballroom, brought about 60 certified CPR instructors to the students seeking certification, said Clay Gibbons, director of sales and marketing for GatorCPR and one of three event hosts.
“We had a lot of no-shows,” Gibbons said. “This no-show rate was higher than years past.”
Maggie Schweitzer, GatorSavers president, said the classes were based on instructional videos from the American Heart Association and ended with four real-life emergency scenarios in which students were forced to react in real time.
“It’s important for students to become CPR-certified because they actually can make a difference,” Schweitzer said.
Grace Hester, an 18-year-old UF applied physiology and kinesiology freshman, said you never know when you may need to save someone’s life.
“I would rather spend a couple of hours on a Saturday and learn (CPR) than watch helplessly during an emergency,” she said.
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 2/17/2014 under the headline "About 700 Gators learn CPR at Reitz Grand Ballroom event"]
