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You're listening to Life Kit.

From NPR.

Hey, everybody. it's Mariel.

Every year, more than 350,000 people go into cardiac arrest outside of the hospital in the U.S.,

meaning their heart stops beating.

Could be because of a heart attack or because they choked on something.

There are a lot of causes.

And people without existing heart conditions can also go into cardiac arrest. But maybe the more shocking statistic is this one. Only about 40% of people who suffer from cardiac arrest

receive CPR from a bystander or late person.

That's Catherine Y. Brown, the founder of Learned CPR America.

I have been teaching CPR for over 30 years. This is three decades of my life.

Catherine's mom was a CPR instructor with the American Heart Association. And Catherine went on to open a CPR company on the south side of Chicago, where mom was a CPR instructor with the American Heart Association.

And Catherine went on to open a CPR company on the south side of Chicago where she's from.

Now, at first, nobody signed up.

So she packed up her mannequin and started going door to door.

Like, knock, knock, hello.

If someone in this house went into cardiac arrest, would you know what to do?

I used to go into housing projects, biker bars, interrupt people's family reunions who I didn't know.

That's how she got her nickname, the CPR lady.

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