The human heart doesn’t ask for permission before it stops. It doesn’t choose the hospital corridor. Sometimes it stops in a crowded marketplace, a wedding hall, or a quiet living room. And in those moments, survival depends not on doctors, but on you.
This is why CPR for laypeople matters.
We often think lifesaving belongs to hospitals, to professionals in white coats. But the truth is sobering—most cardiac arrests happen outside hospitals, and survival rates plummet if CPR isn’t started immediately. Ambulances take time. Doctors take longer. But you are already there.
That’s why at GGMC, through our CPR initiative, we reached beyond the walls of medical colleges. We trained families, auto-rickshaw drivers, office workers, and community members. Some were hesitant at first—“But I’m not a doctor,” they would say. And that’s when we told them stories.
Stories of strangers who saved lives at bus stops. Stories of schoolteachers who kept a student alive till help arrived. Stories of parents who revived their own children.
When laypeople learn CPR, they learn something extraordinary: that you don’t need a degree to be a lifesaver. All you need is courage, and the will to act.
The first chest compression is the hardest. The fear of breaking ribs, of “doing it wrong,” of being judged—it holds people back. But then comes the realization: a broken rib is better than a broken life.
In our sessions, we watched ordinary people transform into rescuers. We saw their eyes light up when they realized that their two hands could restart a heart.
CPR isn’t just a medical act; it is the purest form of human kindness—one life given to another, breath by breath, beat by beat.