A Lesson from the Heart in Woodbury

A Woodbury 10-year-old gave a lifelong, and life-saving, lesson Thursday.

Faith Goetzke, a fifth-grader at , showed her fellow students how to perform hands-only CPR as part of her Girl Scouts Bronze Award.

The lesson was especially poignant for Faith, whose brother Kevin died of cardiac arrest at age 9 while playing tag with his relatives in California about four years ago. Kevin was born with a small hole in his heart, but it closed on its own over time, said Laura Goetzke, who, along with her husband Don, watched Faith’s presentation and helped out with tips for the fifth-graders.

Despite that, the event Thursday was fun and lighthearted, with Faith’s students yelling at her to call 911 during a practice session and the Bee Gees hit Stayin’ Alive played while they practiced hands-only CPR. (It can be done to the song’s beat.)

Faith learned how to perform hands-only CPR through the city’s , which aims to teach 7,000 how to do it.

A few minutes before her presentation, Faith told reporters she wasn’t nervous and had practiced at home.

“I tried it out on some of my neighbors,” she said.

Since it launched in February, about 1,500 people , said Angela Kain, a firefighter-EMT with the .

“The first thousand were the hardest,” she said.

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