The campaign was part of a UEFA project in cooperation with the European Resuscitation Council (ERC), which began with GOAL (GO and save A Life) courses on resuscitation training for players, coaches, referees and staff at matches and tournaments in the run-up to the European Championships.
There was one scene from the last European Championship that most people will remember beyond the goals and chants: when Christian Eriksen collapsed in his Danish team’s group game, he had to be resuscitated on the pitch. Fortunately, he has recovered well and is once again in the Denmark squad.
As emergency care is not always available as quickly as in the stadium, numerous active and former professionals such as Erling Haaland, Ruud Gullit and Didier Deschamps support the “Get Trained, Save Lives” campaign, as part of which the ERC has now been able to train around 12,000 players, coaches and staff who are on duty at UEFA EURO 2024 in resuscitation.
A team from bildung37°, the AGNF competence center for acute and emergency medicine, provided training for the DFB team in Herzogenaurach. Both the professionals around captain Ilkay Gündogan and the coaching and support team learned the theoretical background of resuscitation and practiced on dummies in the event of an emergency.
“The players know exactly what to do on the pitch and are used to stressful situations. But when it comes to life and death, it’s a completely different kind of tension. Now you also have the right tactics when it comes to resuscitation,” explains Klaus Meyer, Chairman of the Management Board of the AGNF and head of the GRC course center in Fürth.
The DFB team is setting a good example, and fans have the chance to do the same as their idols in the fan zones at the venues and receive training in resuscitation. If you want to get started right away, you can learn the principles of resuscitation with prominent players in a virtual changing room on get-trained.com in just a few minutes.
As a GRC course center, bildung37° also offers a wide variety of course formats, from resuscitation courses for laypersons to advanced training for medical professionals. And this applies to the Fürth location in Würzburger Straße, Nuremberg or Bayreuth as well as beyond the metropolitan region, for example in Landshut or Passau.
Founded in 1989, the ERC now comprises 32 national councils, including the German Resuscitation Council, and publishes standardized resuscitation guidelines for the whole of Europe. With campaigns such as the annual one on 16.10. Restart a Heart day or the cooperation with UEFA, the ERC raises awareness for the topic of resuscitation and thus makes a central contribution to saving lives.
