Good Neighbor Podcast: Port Saint Lucie
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Port Saint Lucie. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Benjamin John helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around Port St Lucie, Florida.
Is your business serving the residents of Port Saint Lucie? Then, we need to talk! Visit gnpPSL.com to schedule your free interview.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Port Saint Lucie
E310: Cori Russell's Dedication to Lifesaving Skills and Community Involvement
What makes Cori Russell with Finish Strong CPR & Medical Training, LLC a good neighbor?
Imagine being a bystander during a life-changing emergency and realizing the power of knowing CPR and first aid. That's exactly what propelled Cori Russell into the field of medical training, and on the Good Neighbor Podcast, he shares his compelling journey. With over two decades of experience, Cori discusses the crucial importance of comprehensive CPR and first aid skills, particularly in today's world where cardiac and respiratory issues are increasingly prevalent post-COVID. Unpacking common misconceptions, Cori explains why incorporating breaths is essential, despite the popularity of hands-only CPR, and emphasizes how proper training can significantly boost survival chances in emergencies.
In our business spotlight, Cori sheds light on the impactful mission of Finish Strong CPR and Medical Training. He emphasizes the value of community engagement and how listeners can get involved with their initiatives. As your host, I express heartfelt gratitude for Cori's insightful contributions and extend best wishes for his company’s ongoing success. We also encourage you to support local businesses and guide you on nominating your favorites for future episodes. Tune in for an inspiring conversation that could empower you with life-saving skills and reinforce the significance of community support.
To learn more about Finish Strong CPR & Medical Training, LLC go to:
https://finishstrongcpr.com/
Finish Strong CPR & Medical Training, LLC
772-444-8645
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Benjamin John.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast once again. Hey, are you in the market for some medical training from a professional? Well, there's someone who I just was introduced to who might be closer than you think in helping you with that. So today I have the pleasure of introducing Corey Russell with Finish Strong, cpr and Medical Training. How are you doing, corey?
Speaker 3:I'm doing wonderful. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Good, good, yeah, absolutely. The pleasure is mine and I appreciate you making the time to come on here and share a little bit of your story and what your business specializes in and how people can get a hold of you. So let's just start there. Can you tell us about Finish Strong CPR and medical training?
Speaker 3:Yes, we are a company local to the Treasure Coast. We have a location in Palm City where we teach classes out of our conference room in Palm City where we teach classes out of our conference room, and then we're also mobile and on-site at local businesses teaching CPR certifications, first aid certifications and a variety of other medical courses, and we love it. We have very hands-on emphasis with our students and keep it very engaging, and every instructor has a medical background of 10 plus years, plus all of us are educators as well, so we know how to teach really well.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's amazing and I don't think I got to tell people and emphasize that this is a very much needed thing. I think most people should know how to do some of these things and, admittingly, I've never taken a CPR class, but you having you on the show reminded me the importance of that and I should probably get that done soon.
Speaker 3:I'm an advocate for that. I've heard the same about our choking daughter before. She choked on a frozen grape and I remember that was a really serious endeavor, and choking can lead to a cardiac issue if not treated. So it's just anyone in our life, whether around a kid or around a colleague, who's like, oh, choking or having heart issues. It really is everywhere.
Speaker 2:And since COVID it seems that there's a higher incidence of heart attacks, rescue, breathing, like asthmatic issues and things that I think might be stemming from having that type of illness preparation, because you just never know when some of these things happen, and being unprepared is where the risks comes in, and having someone who's trained, like yourself and the people that you train, kind of eliminates the possibilities of the worst case scenario happening.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's kind of how I got started was there was an emergency and that's kind of part of my story, of why I even became an instructor 20 years ago and so it really made an impact on me. It wasn't until that situation that I took it seriously as well, and I was, you know, emergency medical provider at the time, so I'd taken a couple classes, but it's pretty serious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that was my next question, so maybe you can elaborate on that. I was gonna ask you how did you get into this business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I got into it. I was actually a sports medic, for you know I had a career of about two decades and in that first job I worked in professional tennis and one of our staff members experienced we didn't know at the time a stroke, and he was out on the tennis courts, out by where the Sony Erickson was played far court, because he was using clay courts and the ball bounces a little slower. So you know he's a little older and I responded to that. Someone said hey, corey, there's an emergency, grabbed my arm, ran out there and I had no idea what kind of emergency. I didn't have.
Speaker 3:Our AD on us are automated external defibrillator and we were doing CPR and you know it was a devastating incident. It was a coach I worked very close with and it just changed my whole life in that moment and the next week I became an instructor just because of the impact of wanting to be able to teach classes that you know would bring people to a better level than what I felt I was prepared for as someone who took a couple classes and just didn't get that hands-on experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can see how that would kind of set you on the trajectory to go down the path that you did and I'm happy to hear that something traumatic you were able to convert into something more positive and kind of help people who may be in a similar situation that you are with that being unprepared, and help them get prepared for something like that in case it does.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's our goal. I was just teaching people this morning and, with that same thought process, they were like you know, I've taken a lot of classes, this one's a little different and I was like our children live in this community. We're Treasure Coast residents. We want to see people survive, we want to see people have a better chance at survival, and I believe everybody can make a difference in someone's life in that way.
Speaker 2:I agree. Couldn't agree more. Okay, so are there any myths or misconceptions in that industry?
Speaker 3:There are and I really want to highlight a major one that, especially since the pandemic, I come across a lot of students who will be like you know, I don't need to give the breaths. We do compressions and breaths and with the pandemic, you know, everyone just kind of was like, hey, hands-only CPR, that is one major. You know, public awareness push. But you know that is one major. You know public awareness push. But you know, as we want to increase chances of survival using a face shield that protects you I'm all about bloodborne pathogen protection We'll allow you to still give breaths because eventually that person is going to need oxygen, oxygenated blood.
Speaker 3:We start out with some because before someone passed out they were breathing and there's oxygenated blood there. But you know, throughout the time that you might be doing your five to 10 minutes of CPR, whatever amount of time it is, the breaths are still very important and can increase success and chances of survival significantly. So I just want to put that out there. For people is you know, don't just push. If you get trained, learn how to do the right rhythm of compressions and also give those very vital breaths.
Speaker 2:Okay. Yeah, it's an important message and I'm glad you broke it down technically. Okay. So who are your target customers and how do you attract them?
Speaker 3:Well, most of the time we do. We can gain a lot more traction if we're training. You know a bigger group of people and we find that teams that work the best together are staff members at local businesses and families and you know groups of people so we bring our services to someone like as if we're doing a staff training, and those are a lot of our target clients and it's really anyone who's trying to increase their emergency preparedness, from a church group all the way to another extreme of construction workers who are going to need that OSHA and CPR first aid certification every some number of years. Usually the CPR is about every two years. We really focus on people who are non-medical and need it for their industry or family members and church groups and schools and such like that as well. But we do provide weekly classes that are for basic life support, that are for our medical providers as well. We just do those on site at our own location in Palm City.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I can see that being more of a group-based type service and attraction for companies and then, for obvious reasons, companies that maybe have some type of risks involved.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, especially since we do a lot of team hands-on training and where two or three people are assisting with the rescue. It makes it very realistic to the situation that I was in that I explained earlier, where one person I started responding someone else is calling 9-1-1. We're having someone run to go get the AED flag down an ambulance it's. It takes a team and you know, teamwork makes the dream. Work is one of my favorite mottos that I use all the time and in this situation it really does help. If you're not by yourself and we prepare people for that situation, it's the worst case scenario, but teamwork really does change the outcome significantly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense and I can see with the team you can role play it kind of like you just described, to like a real life scenario. Very cool, all right. So outside of work, what do you like to do for fun?
Speaker 3:I'm an athlete since I was five years old when my dad put me in martial arts taekwondo so I find that very therapeutic and I love nature. So, me and my family, we like to go surfing. You'll catch me on two wheels more often than four, so I like to be out on the mountain bike or road bike, um, or motorcycle, any of those, um, get me out and refresh me gears on you a little bit here and I'm going to ask is there a hardship you know, other than you've already explained a couple of them?
Speaker 2:Have you ever went through a hardship or a life challenge that changed you or made you stronger?
Speaker 3:Definitely. I think one of the toughest times that I had, you know, both physically and mentally, as I was growing up as a teenager, was earning my black belt in Taekwondo. There's, you know, certain stipulations each dojo or each you know place has, but mine was that you had to break a brick, one of those like garden size, two, three inch bricks. And I was 13 when I earned my first degree black belt and you know it was just nerve wracking, the patience you know I didn't have it then and perseverance and resilience, and so it just took a lot of practice and being able to earn my black belt, go through all the testing. It was a lot and I am. I think it defined me as a person. It helped me become more disciplined, it helped me to persevere and not give up when I probably would have have, and I see that as shaping me into the person I am the mom, the spouse I am and the just really the teacher I am.
Speaker 2:Very cool. Yeah, it's a very fascinating story and I like I like that as far as how it helped and shaped you and contributed to you know your yourself as an adult and life in general. Very cool story. Okay, corey, tell our listeners one thing they should remember about finish strong CPR and medical training.
Speaker 3:I think the biggest thing is you know our slogan, which is we're here to create safer communities. You know, our goal isn't just to get you in a class and have you earn a certification only. We really want our community to earn a certification only. We really want our community to be a safer place. We want people to be confident in their skills as they learn them and really be able to feel like they can act, whether they're the one who calls 911 or they're the one actually responding and doing some compressions.
Speaker 3:You know everyone has a role to play. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. So I'd like you know listeners, to just remember that even if you think you're not strong enough or you have arthritis or you hurt your arm, you know you can play a role that is just as impactful, because I believe running to go get the AD is is half the battle right there, because without that we can't save someone who has cardiac arrest. So that job is just as important as the person doing compressions, and I think people forget that and they're like oh, I can't do that, you know. But you can do something. And you know, come get trained and find out what, what you're good at and you know. That way you can feel confident and help create a safer community with us.
Speaker 2:I like that. I like that uplifting encouragement and such a positive message and awareness in that statement Very cool, all right. So how can our listeners learn more about finish strong CPR and medical training?
Speaker 3:I think a great place to start is, you know, getting on our website a lot of our red class registrations. Just go right there. They can find out, you know, about myself or other instructors. They on the website has our office number that they can call if they have questions and we'll direct them in whichever way we can. But finish strong CPR dot com is our website, so that would probably be the best place to to learn more about us and what we're all about.
Speaker 2:OK, very good. Well, corey, I want to thank you for jumping on here, taking the time and bringing awareness to you know your company and you know what you do is very important, so I'm glad that we're getting more exposure and how people can get involved with what you got going on, and we wish you and the best going forward for the company.
Speaker 3:Thank you, benjamin, and it was really a pleasure and honor to be able to come and speak.
Speaker 2:All right, take care.
Speaker 3:Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPPortStLucycom. That's GNPPortStLucycom, or call 772-303-1036.