A new app is being launched to educate students and give them confidence in operating an automated external defibrillator.

An AED has been installed in the ‘Mikey Unit’ at Humberview Secondary School in Bolton, named after Michael Hart Salem who died from cardiac arrest in Muskoka in 2002. It’s one of 350 units that have been donated to schools in Peel Region and the GTA by the Mikey Network.

To help increase the number of students who are familiar with AED’s; the Mikey Network is launching a new app to help educate students and give them the confidence to grab one in an emergency.

“It’s free and it’s available to all students in Peel Region, it’s an app that allows them to earn volunteer hours toward their graduation and they learn life-saving skills, which are CPR and AED,” says Eva Naumovski from the Mikey Network.

Students say they hope the app will help get other students up to speed and understand how the AED works.

“With the app, I think more students will focus on it and hopefully integrate into our health programs for gym and all that, so all students would get trained on defibrillator and first aid training, it would be fantastic,” says grade 12 student AJ Wilson.

The Mikey Network says 27 people have already been saved over the past 12 years.