At Bob Cermignano Air Conditioning & Heating, Inc., we value our employees and believe in the importance of education. While our technicians continually take technical courses to further their knowledge and experience in the HVAC industry, we enrolled all our employees in a different type of training this past week- the American Heart Association’s Heartsaver® First Aid/CPR/ AED Course.

This two-part course was held exclusively for our company at the Merion Fire Company and was taught by an American Heart Association certified instructor from Narberth Ambulance. The first part of the course focused on CPR and AED while the second part focused on First Aid. The overall topics we covered in this course were:

• First Aid
• Medical Emergencies
• Injury Emergencies
• Environmental Emergencies
• Preventing Illness and Injury
• Adult, Children and Infant CPR and AED Use
• Opioid- Associated Life-Threatening Emergencies

Whether working in the field or volunteering as a baseball coach after business hours, we wanted to provide our employees with the knowledge and skills to help save a life if they ever find themselves in an emergency.



Below is an overview of what our employees learned over the two-part course.

Part 1- CPR & AED

The first part of the Heartsaver® course focused on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Automated External Defribrillator (AED) for adults, children and infants. Topics we learned and discussed included, but was not limited to:

• Assessing the scene to determine if CPR is necessary
• Calling 9-1-1 for help
• Understanding how CPR improves survival rates
• Performing CPR on adults, children and infants
• Demonstrating using an AED on adults, children and infants



After we finished with the discussion portion of the class, we then practiced the skills we learned for CPR on the American Heart Association dummies.

Part 2- First Aid

The second part of the Heartsaver® course focused on First Aid. Topics we learned and discussed included, but was not limited to:

• Describing the key steps in First Aid
• Identifying the problem
• Assessing the situation to look for life-threatening conditions: heart attack, difficulty breathing, choking, severe bleeding, shock and stroke
• Administering an epinephrine pen
• Using an inhaler
• Controlling bleeding and applying bandages
• Recognizing the signs of common illnesses and injuries
• Looking out for hot and cold weather related illnesses



Following the discussion portion of the course, we practiced how to administer Narcan and how to properly apply a tourniquet to an American Heart Association dummy.

Within 24 hours of completing the course, we received our American Heart Association cards electronically and are now officially certified for the next two years. Next on our agenda is evaluating the First Aid kits we have on our company trucks to make sure we have all the tools and medical supplies we need to respond to an emergency.

All in all, we received a lot of positive feedback from our employees saying how they enjoyed the course and learned a lot of useful information that will not only be useful on the job but in their personal lives as well. We are thankful to Bob for making this training course a priority and taking the time out of our employee’s busy work schedules to make this training possible.