Instructors at Hinds Community College in Vicksburg are coming together to provide first aid and CPR certification for Vicksburg and Warren Central high school students.

Health science teachers Eloise Ford and Marian Banks and childcare instructor Kay Chaney are teaming up to provide students with skills necessary in both fields.

Banks said students in both of the programs need to know CPR and first aid.

“We kind of integrate and get together since we have the one big lab,” she said. “We get together and just do it together.

Banks said it’s important for the students to learn life skills like CPR and first aid.

“When they get their certification card it’s good for two years, then they can come back here and get recertified,” she said.

Chaney said the skills are part of the curriculum for both programs.

“I told these girls, if you take a resume in and they see first aid and CPR certified, people are going to look at that,” she said.

Chaney said she never thought she would need to use the emergency skills — until the day she did.

She said she and her husband were eating at KFC when a woman started choking, prompting her to perform the Heimlich maneuver and save the woman’s life.

“(My husband) was so proud; he called all of our children to tell them their mom was a hero,” she said.

Warren Central senior Ashley Meredith, 17, said it’s convenient she’s able to take the course through her school.

“I took it last year,” she said. “I’ve taken it three times in the last three years.”

Meredith said she keeps her certification current because she works as a lifeguard but she said the course is useful even if someone doesn’t need it for work.

“Anytime you walk in at home if anything has happened to your mom or sister or anyone in your family you could help them,” she said.

Meredith said she has learned a lot from the class and she’s glad it’s offered as a high school course.

“It could save a life,” she said.

Banks said students in the health science program often go on to be nurses, physical therapists and doctors among other health-related fields.

“The health science program is a program where we introduce the students to the different disciplines in health care,” she said.

Chaney said her program is centered around childcare, but her students have gone on to do a lot of different things from designing computer software for children to writings children’s books.

“It’s not just taking care of kids; it’s any profession that deals with children,” she said. “I had a girl who went and got a degree in social work, then she took the LSAT and she’s an attorney now working in Jackson as a children’s advocate.”