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#VShocks project student lead Axie Finch (second from right) and the team ready for action at V Festival – Weston Park, Staffordshire.

Students from the University of Birmingham are doubling their efforts to deliver CPR training to festival-goers this summer – teaching people life-saving techniques at both V festival sites.

The ‘#VShocks’ team is building on its initial success at last year’s V Festival at Weston Park, in Staffordshire teaching over 1500 people CPR and raising awareness to over 3000 – covering Hylands Park in Essex on the same weekend.

University of Birmingham students will be at both festival sites from 18 to 21 August and – after their success in 2016 - aim to double the number of music lovers who learn more about CPR.

Axie Finch, medical student and #VShocks project student lead, said, "We had a really successful debut at last year’s V Festival – by covering both festival sites this year, we’re aiming to raise CPR awareness still further. We want to provide the public with life-long skills they can take away from the festival that could one day enable them to save a life.”

As in 2016, V Festival staff will be getting involved with the project and attending a teaching session. They have already remarked to the #VShocks team how important it is to 'learn such a vital skill that could make a difference to someone’s life'.

CPR is delivered when a person has a cardiac arrest, becomes unconscious and stops breathing. Each year approximately 60,000 cardiac arrests occur outside of a hospital setting in the UK. Currently fewer than one in ten people survive.

A significant reason behind the poor survival statistic is that the UK has a low rate of bystander CPR – where a member of the public starts CPR before the emergency services arrive. This delay in CPR reduces the chance that the person will be successfully resuscitated. For each minute delay in delivering CPR and defibrillation to a person in cardiac arrest, their chance of survival reduces by 10%.

The key to improving bystander CPR rate is to equip the public with the skills needed to perform CPR and to ensure they are confident to use them.

Resuscitation for Medical Disciplines (RMD) is a University of Birmingham-affiliated organisation dedicated to CPR education. RMD train senior healthcare students to teach CPR to 750 university students each year.

In continuing its partnership with V Festival RMD hope to teach as many members of the public as possible. RMD will be onsite at Weston Park and Hylands Park teaching CPR from Friday to Monday.

For interview requests or more information, please contact Tony Moran, Acting Head of Communications, University of Birmingham on +44 (0)121 414 8254. For out of hours media enquiries, please call: +44 (0) 7789 921 165

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