Aquatic lifeguard Cameron McFarlane wants the state government to take the plunge and include cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the curriculum for primary schools.
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His NSW Primary School CPR Awareness Program has a sea of sponsors and supporters from Royal Life Saving Australia and school principals to the Commonwealth Bank and Rotary.
The full-time senior lifeguard at the Gunnedah aquatic centre is back in Dubbo this week to teach CPR to year five and year six students at Dubbo South Public School, Orana Heights Public School and Dubbo Public School.
Since 2011 he has equipped almost 24,000 students across NSW with the emergency procedure which he calls "a simple skill that anyone can learn".
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The experience of resuscitating five people in an 18-month period prompted Mr McFarlane to develop the program which he conducts on his "days off" and at a minimal fee to cover costs.
"The five people survived," he said on Thursday.
"But they didn't survive because it was me. They survived because I knew how to do it."
Mr McFarlane said 98 per cent of students were "physically strong enough" to learn CPR on the program's adult mannequins.
They willingly engaged in training sessions and asked questions such as "Can you break bones?", he said.
The lifeguard said a student of the program had saved his father's life in Tamworth.
He is asking for a meeting with NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell.
In 2018 Mr McFarlane introduced his program to Vietnam.
"All my sponsors push me around the state and we had a lot of Rotary clubs push us over to Vietnam," he said.
