A doctor who was once part of the medical team that left for Wuhan to aid Hubei Province in the fight against COVID-19, has drawn wide attention on Chinese social media for his voluntary move of teaching passers-by to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR.
Zhang Junqiao, 32, is a doctor working in the anesthesiology department at Affiliated Hospital of Weifang Medical University in Weifang City, east China's Shandong Province. He had been aiding a local hospital in Huanggang City, central China's Hubei Province, to battle against the virus amid the outbreak for more than two months.
As the outbreak gradually ebbed away in China, Zhang came up with the idea to set up a stall in a local square and teach passers-by how to correctly perform CPR.
Zhang Junqiao teaches a passer-by to perform CPR. /Qilu Evening News
On June 7, Zhang began his move to popularize the knowledge of CPR and show local residents how to perform the first aid on the street. He was also joined by his wife, who is also a medical worker, and his daughter, who helped him send out some learning materials to passers-by.
The week is also recognized as "CPR week" in China, which lasts from June 1 to June 7.
Zhang bought a CPR training manikin, a thin mat and some other training aid on his own and brought along the equipment with him during the teaching process.
To show passers-by how to correctly perform CPR, he knelt down while performing the steps, and taught everyone who wanted to learn. Teaching out in public became quite exhausting since he needed to kneel down while teaching for two to three hours.
His voluntary actions have attracted many local residents, some of whom filmed him performing CPR on the street and began sharing videos online.
His efforts have been lauded by local residents as well as netizens on Chinese social media, praising him for his selfless spirit. Touched by his example, dozens of local medical workers have joined Zhang to teach voluntarily.
Speaking on his motivation, Zhang said he wanted as many as people to learn how to perform CPR correctly.
He said the implementation rate of CPR in China is lower than other countries and the lack of relevant knowledge is one of the reasons for the low success rate of sudden cardiac arrest rescues.
According to the data from the National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, the rescue rate of cardiac arrest in China is less than one percent. The main reason is that most of the cardiac arrests occur outside the hospital.
Once a cardiac arrest occurs for over four minutes, permanent damage will happen to brain tissue, and brain death occurs after more than 10 minutes. So it is important to conduct timely first aid within four minutes, which is called the "golden rescue time."
Last year, the sudden death of Chinese-Canadian actor Godfrey Gao during the filming of a reality show in east China has drawn the public's attention to the country's deficiency in first aid training.
China's CPR implementation rate is far behind the rate of developed countries in Europe and America; Germany's CPR implementation rate reaches as high as 80 percent.
