Free CPR training offered by Calgary company in honour of Heart Month

February is Heart Month in Canada, and a local company is giving away $25,000 worth of CPR training to mark the occasion.

A Calgary company is hosting free CPR training in honor of Heart Month in Canada.

First Aid Training, which has offices in both Calgary and Edmonton, is offering $25,000 worth of free CPR training to Albertans who sign up online.

First Aid Training Calgary founder and CEO Ben Marasco says it’s the third year in a row they’ve offered the training for free.

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“We’re just a local small business that isn’t sponsored by some big corporate company, this isn’t a grant, we save up all year to be able to give this back to the community,” he said.

“It’s really popular and the free spots go quickly, but for the entire month of February, people can register at a 10 per cent discount rate to really step forward and say ‘I’ve been wanting to do it, let this be the motivation to do it.’”

Marasco says getting CPR certified is one of the most important skills to have to help safeguard loved ones and people in the community.

“When someone goes into sudden cardiac arrest, our chance of survival is (low),” he said. “It’s really early CPR and early defibrillation that are key links in the chain of survival. When CPR is done, it can double or triple our chances of survival.”

“it’s not good to do - it’s absolutely needed.”

Marasco says statistics show that heart disease affects approximately 2.4 million Canadian adults and is the second leading cause of death in Canada, yet only 18 per cent of Canadians have been certified at some time to perform CPR.

“In the event that someone collapses, only about one in five people will actually step forward to help,” he said.

“And a lot of that comes down to confidence to be able to help, so many people say, ‘Oh, I did a CPR course in high school, I did it years ago for work,’ – but data is unanimous, at the six month mark skills decrease, (and continue to decline over the next two years). It’s really about building a muscle memory that we have to practice (and re-certify) a minimum of every three years.”

Registration for the courses is opened on Tuesday.

Last February, registration was filled in less than three minutes.

Once the courses are full, all programs First Aid Training offers will be available at a discounted rate (using code HEART25 when registering) to encourage as many people as possible to receive training, and those discounts are available until midnight on Feb. 28 when booked online.

“For a basic CPR course, you can get certified in about two thirds of a day,” said Marasco. “Just to learn some basic skills of CPR, you’re certified for three years. It’s a low commitment, it’s really easy to do, we hope everybody can find two thirds of a day to be able to do that.”

Since the offering began in 2023, more than $35,000 in free training has been provided.