San Diego State’s Sigma Lambda Beta Inc. Psi Gamma chapter organized and hosted a free CPR workshop on campus last Saturday.

Sigma Lambda Beta member and civil engineering junior Miguel Arciniega said the CPR workshop is held in memory of a Victor Correa, a fellow fraternity brother who drowned in Puerto Rico while visiting his family.

Medical examiners said Correa could have been saved if a bystander had performed CPR on him. However, no one at the scene knew CPR, Arciniega said.

At the time of the incident, Victor Correa had just been initiated into the State University of New York at Stony Brook chapter of the Sigma Lambda Beta Fraternity.  Each year, Sigma Lamba Beta honors “Victor Correa CPR Awareness Day” on Nov. 20th.

The SDSU chapter’s event is sponsored by the Aztec Student Union Board and Wings-N-Things, Arciniega said.

CPR instructor Victor Olvera said he became an instructor to help save lives and instruct people how to act quickly in life-threating situations.

“I hope that this class teaches them to help whenever they can and do their part,” Olvera said. “It’s always good to know what to do.”

He teaches adult, child, and infant CPR and shows the class how to deal with situations where a person is choking. He also demonstrates how to us an “Auto External Defibrillator” for all ages.

Business and marketing sophomore CJ Wessel took the CPR class to be prepared for emergency situations.

“I have a lot a younger cousins that I take out during the summer time and they go swimming and I thought it would be good to have the knowledge of CPR being around the pool and the beach with them,” Wessel said.

The training was held in three separate blocks throughout the day and a total of 105 people completed the training to become CPR certified. In addition, there was a workshop held on Friday to educate about the importance of CPR.

Photo by Kelly Smiley, staff photographer.