Stayin’ alive
Hands-only CPR
Los Angeles residents learned how to give hands-only CPR recently during a stop of the American Heart Association Hands-Only CPR Mobile unit. Nearly 400,000 Americans suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year and almost 90 percent die because they don’t receive immediate CPR from someone on the scene.
If started immediately, hands-only CPR can double or triple a person’s chance of survival. Go the website www.heart.org/handsonlycpr and learn the process works.
The American Heart Association (AHA) is launching its new Get to Goal hypertension management program and is accepting applications from L.A. County-based potential participants until March 17.
The idea behind the campaign is to promote a healthy lifestyle, including strategies to reduce hypertension among African American and Latino adults.
The four-month program includes interactive health education classes and access to a health mentor who will help set goals, create action plans and monitor progress.
The second annual Powerful Black Family Celebration hosted by the American Heart Association will be held Saturday from noon-3 p.m. at the Van Ness Recreation Center, 5720 Second Ave. in Los Angeles. The event will feature educational, life-improving activities as well as tributes to former UCLA Bruin Walt Hazzard and Pastor Billy Ingram. Both died of cardiovascular disease.
Proposition 29, also known as HOPE 2010: The California Cancer Research Act, imposes an additional $1 per pack tax on cigarettes, increasing the tax to $1.87. Revenue from the suggested tax would fund research for cancer and tobacco-related diseases. The increased tax will raise about $735 million annually by 2013-14 for research and tobacco prevention programs.
Sylvia Felix, second from right, is shown with the American Heart Association mascot and Union Bank executives (from left) John Stephan, senior vice president, Community Banking Sales and Service and Pierre Habis, senior executive vice president, Head of Community Banking during the annual Walking Day held Wednesday at the bank’s downtown headquarters. Felix’s nephew R.J. died in 2009, after living 14 years with heart disease. During the last five years, Union Bank and its employees have donated $2.5 million to the AHA.
The Black Family Celebration sponsored by the American Heart Association attracted dozens of families to find out about health issues like heart disease, which is the No. 1 killer in Los Angeles and claims the lives of more African Americans than all cancers combined. Among the information parents need to know is that before they can start their child in school this year, the youngster must get a whooping cough vaccination and proof must be presented upon registration.
