Would You Know What To Do?

 By now, you've probably heard the sad story out of Michigan, where a 16-year-old basketball player collapsed and died after leading his team to victory.

The question is: Would you know what to do if something like this happened in front of you? Research shows most Americans don't know how to do CPR, and even those who do will perform it only 26 percent of the time when someone collapses.

Why the hesitation? A lack of confidence? After all, the "new" CPR is compressions only -- no more mouth-to-mouth, so concerns over putting your mouth on someone else's isn't a factor any more.

Learning CPR isn't that hard, in fact a new study shows watching a 60 second video of how it's performed gives confidence to bystanders to step up to the plate and help someone who has collapsed.

And that's an important step. CPR triples the survival rate of someone who keels over from a cardiac arrest.

So you may ask "Where's this video?" You can find them online, but a much better way to learn what to do, and feel good about your ability to do it, is to get some hands-on training.

And next month, you can do just that.

On April 9, Saturday, you can learn CPR quickly through a program offered by Centura, Exempla, HealthOne, and the American Heart Association.

The program goes from 9-5 ( no, it doesn't take that long- those are simply the hours the courses are being taught) at the Hamilton Gymnasium at the University of Denver. The goal is to teach 5,000 people in one day how to save a life.

So if you don't know CPR, or just need to freshen up your skills, this is the program for you. You never know where you might be when someone collapses- it could even be a high school basketball game- and you can be the one with the confidence and the skill to save a life.