LANSING - The American Heart Association (AHA), Senator Tonya Schuitmaker (R) and Representative Thomas Hooker (R) launched a CPR in Schools campaign last month.

The goal of the campaign is to make sure all high school students in the state of Michigan know how to properly perform the life-saving skill of CPR.

According to an AHA press release, nearly 357,000 people have cardiac arrest outside of a hospital every year and only 8 percent survive. If a victim does not receive help within the first three to five minutes, there's the possibility of brain damage occurring.

“As a former teacher and coach for 37 years, I’m proud to sponsor this legislation because CPR saves lives,” Rep. Hooker said. “If every high school student in Michigan learned CPR before graduation, we could add 100,000 more qualified lifesavers in our state each year.”

The legislation Hooker and Schuitmaker are supporting is called HB 5160 and SB 647. So far, 27 states have passed similar laws that will ensure every high school student is CPR trained before graduation.

Haslett High School Principal Bart Wegenke shared his thoughts on why he thinks CPR is important for high school students to know.

"I think it's very important for students to know CPR," Wegenke said. "You know, anytime throughout their life they may be faced with a situation where they need to put CPR into practice--hopefully that never happens that they have to do that, but, certainly the way life works, they probably will."

On Wednesday, the American Heart Association held an event where advocates of HB 5160 from across the state met with senators and representatives to encourage them to support the bill, which would make hands-only a CPR a graduation requirement.

Sarah Poole, Government Relations Director of the American Heart Association, said the idea behind bringing this bill to Michigan was brought by 27 other states already having similar legislation in effect.

"As we saw this happening nationwide we realized this is something we certainly want to happen in Michigan as well," Poole said. "We identified a couple of sponsors for our legislation--one in the house and one in the senate."

Poole said while there isn't a specific timeline of when the bill will move forward and be approved, she hopes it will hopefully be voted on by December of this year.