Students in home economics at Azalea Middle School learned life-saving lessons last week. 

Three Cal-Ore Life Flight employees spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday teaching 150 students how to give CPR, dislodge a foreign body obstruction and halt severe bleeding using pressure points.

Home economics teacher Joi Gleason requested Cal-Ore teach her students, who got the chance to earn a CPR card.

"Our goal is to get somebody back to life and keep them alive long enough for the professionals to come," Gleason said.

Cal-Ore teaches one first aid and two CPR classes to the general public each month, General Manager Joe Gregorio said.

"The demand has been really overwhelming," Gregorio said.

His goal is to certify 1,000 people in Curry County by year's end.

Between 25 and 35 people are certified with Cal-Ore each month, he said.

This was the first time Cal-Ore staff certified seventh- and eighth-graders. Gregorio said seventh-graders are the youngest he will certify. 

To earn a CPR card, students had to score 100 percent on a written test and demonstrate their life-saving skills on mannequins.

"The kids have done an outstanding job," Gregorio said. "Just the skills they're performing - it's very pleasing. "It's something we want to promote in schools," Gregorio said, adding that they plan to do similar training at Brookings-Harbor High School.

A Cal-Ore public CPR class normally costs $30, but the company absorbed the cost for Azalea students.

Each student was asked to bring just 50 cents to partially pay for the CPR card and an American Heart Association CPR instruction book written for teens.

For more information about Cal-Ore classes, call (541) 469-7911.