Surprisingly, college sports coaches have not been required to be CPR certified. However, the NCAA is making changes to their rules.

NCAA has amended rules to ensure that any time a school has a “physical countable athletic activity on campus” a staff member who is CPR and first aid certified. This does not meant that the coaches must be certified, but it’s encouraged.

“Several sports don’t have a trainer at every practice, so this empowers the coaches in catastrophic situations,” said Fred Hoiberg, men’s basketball coach at Iowa State. Fred is CPR certified.

Let your voice be heard; contact your university president and ask about CPR requirements for staff and faculty.

Be a Hero! Learn CPR.

She calls herself ‘The Reptile Rescuer,’ and it isn’t because she saved the life of the cold-blooded, bearded dragon with CPR.

Sherrie Dolezal accidentally set poor Del Sol up for disaster when she forgot to put the rocks back in his swimming pool. She soon found him, his golden-hue turned a deathly shade of blue. She set to work. Unsure of how many chest compressions and breaths to administer, she faked it. After all, it’s very hard to go wrong with CPR.

She pumped his little chest, then held him upside down so the water could drain from his lungs. She even held his mouth open and blew breaths inside.

A veterinarian who specializes in exotic pets thinks Del Sol may have been unconscious, but after all the drowning stories we’ve blogged about here, and considering Del Sol’s tiny lung capacity, it wouldn’t have taken much for him to drown. It only takes a few minutes for a human being to drown, after all.

We’re sure Sherrie saved Del Sol’s exotic life, in more ways than one. Besides the CPR-drowning rescue, she rescues abandoned lizards (turtles, dogs) after their previous owners discard them. We take our CPR hats off to Sherrie.

Be a Hero! Learn CPR.

With holidays in the not too distant future, have you considered working with a group of co-workers or friends to raise money for charity groups or organizations that rely on donations to survive? Perhaps, instead of more sweaters, and popcorn makers, that money could go toward CPR training for teachers at your local elementary school, or high school.

There are thousands of teachers in this country who are not trained in CPR. There are probably thousands more who work with people each day, but wouldn’t know how to use CPR to save their life.

The gift of life can be as simple as a donation. For instance, Ozark Technical Community College donated CPR training and an arterial defibrillator to a charity organization that assists about 50,000 people every year.

Believe it or not, they didn’t have the $2,250 they needed to purchase a piece of life-saving equipment, and many of the volunteers and workers did not have CPR training.

Be a hero and give the gift of life! Pay CPR forward.