BLOG

Around the turn of the century the body of a young girl was pulled from the Seine River in Paris, France. There was no evidence of violence, and it was assumed this young girl took her own life or drowned. Since her identity could not be verified, a “Death mask” was made as was customary in such cases. In the 1950’s Asmund S. Laerdal of Stavanger, Norway a small fishing village along the coast on one of the southernmost fjords began the development of a realistic and effective training manikin to teach mouth to mouth resuscitation. As a toy doll manufacturer and book publisher, Laerdal gave new realism to dolls by making them of soft vinyl and stitched natural hair. He believed that if a manikin was life size and realistic in appearance and esthetically appealing, people would be more motivated to learn lifesaving skills.

As the manikin evolved, he could not find a face which satisfied him. One day while visiting at his in-laws home, he saw on the wall the death mask of a young girl. He was instantly taken back by her mystical beauty. It dawned on him that this mask of a person taken by death in her youth would make an ideal face mask to use for teaching people how to save lives! Laerdal asked the well-known sculptress Emma Mathiassen to model a face for the resuscitation training manikins. Her smile captured the beholders, and the mask became the face and personality of “Resusci Annie”! She was modified so that she had a compressible chest and a sponge rubber heart which produced a palpable pulse in her neck when CPR was performed correctly. She became the basic tool nationwide, carried out by the American Heart Association for all CPR and related trainings. 

The spirit of the girl from the Seine River officially came to life in 1960 and continues to live on as “Resusci Annie”. Since her creation, “Resusci Annie” has helped train over one hundred million people throughout the world in CPR. The mask of death has become a tool that has helped save countless lives.