By Sara MosquedaFernandez

By Sara MosquedaFernandez

Intern

Two months ago, Julio Cano saved the life of his four-month old cousin over the phone by instructing his uncle how to perform CPR on the unconscious child. Cano is not a doctor or an EMT. He’s not even a life guard. He is a 17 year-old junior at Oxford High School, originally from Guanajuato, Mexico, and his first language is Spanish.

Yet Cano isn’t satisfied with saving just one life; he’s working so that his peers and fellow members of the Spanish-speaking community of the Kennett Square area have the ability to save anyone in the case of an emergency. “I teach everyone in the community who is interested,” said Cano.

With the aid of the American Red Cross and Exelon Power, Cano has been training members of the Chester County community in ESL CPR and First Aid

On Oct. 6, Cano began teaching a 2-day course at Kennett High School for about 50 English as Second Language students – the same course Cano completed two years ago. The course covered adult CPR and First Aid topics, including injuries, sudden illness, and temperature-related emergencies.

The class is set up so that the material is presented by both the student instructors and on a large projector screen. The students practice what they learn when they perform CPR on adult-sized mannequins and learn how to properly tie on a sling on their fellow classmates. At the end of each class, the students take a quiz in order to be certified.

Cano was supported by two of his peers, Olga Bernal and Sinai Castano, juniors at Kennett High School, the three of them teaching the entire course to their ESL peers in Spanish. “We can teach other students what we know,” said Castano. The girls agree that they’re both comfortable and confident with the life-saving techniques they learned in a summer week-long course. “As long as there’s no blood,” said Bernal.

With physical and financial support from both the Red Cross and Exelon, Cano has been able to instruct five classes entirely in Spanish so far in the Chester County community. Gerry Rocker, American Red Cross Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter Manager of Health and Safety Training, has been assisting Cano, along with three other full-time Red Cross instructors.

Spanish CPR and First Aid courses have been offered by the American Red Cross since 2007, with Exelon donating thousands of dollars in order to supply the training materials. Rocker and Cano state that Exelon has also paid for Cano’s teaching courses to the community, with a $2000 grant that affords for the equipment (including four CPR dummies and an AED), training, and even the hours Red Cross employees are putting in to aid Cano.

Created in October 2000, Exelon Power is now one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, the nation’s largest owner of nuclear power plants, bringing in approximately $19 billion in annual revenues and distributing electricity to about 5.4 million customers.

The Red Cross was founded in 1881 by Clara Barton, and is now an international emergency response organization with the aim of preventing and relieving suffering worldwide.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter of the Red Cross is the second-largest chapter in the nation, serving five nearby counties: Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia.

As a freshman, Cano completed a CPR and First Aid class that was taught by the Red Cross. After taking the course, Cano says “I saw other families and wanted them to be prepared. I want others to know what to do if someone they love was hurt.”