When Brycen Go was 10, he attended a Boy Scout meeting on cardiopulmonary resuscitation and found his passion: teaching others to save lives.

"When I’m teaching I feel like I’m doing the right thing. … It’s just what I’m made to do," said Brycen, now a seventh-grader at Jarrett Middle School.

"(Brycen) is passionate, knowledgeable … so special. He’s just an extraordinary kid," said Pamela Foster, the registered nurse who met Brycen when she taught him CPR at that troop meeting in 2012.

"From that day on he just had a passion to teach people," Foster said, estimating that since then he has taught more than 10,000 people the lifesaving skill. "He has helped teach 3-year-olds to 83-year-olds."

Brycen is one of the youngest certified American Heart Association instructors in the state, said Foster, who is also president of the AED Institute of America Inc. and the founder of the Hawaii Heart Foundation.

Now 12, Brycen received the Parent Heart Watch Heroes for Young Hearts Advocacy Champion award in the youth division Jan. 16 in Scottsdale, Ariz.

"I was a little overwhelmed and proud," Brycen said. "Parent Heart Watch is really supportive. They support every family that lost a child. They’re really welcoming."

Brycen holds a basic life support certification, which he earned when he was 11.

This means he knows "the basic line of what nurses know," Brycen said. He can evaluate a situation, check a pulse, take someone’s blood pressure and assist in other duties.

During his free time Brycen enjoys visiting the Emergency Medical Services dispatch center to learn from EMS personnel. He also gives tours of the center and helps in its booth at fairs. "Because of my age I cannot go with the EMS and respond to calls," Brycen said.

At other times he can be found at the Hawaii Heart Foundation teaching CPR. He leads three to six classes a month during the school year and many more during the summer months, Foster said.

"I never really thought I was gonna be here right now," Brycen said. "It just came to me that I was meant to be teaching."

Brycen, the son of Tracey Kojima-Go and Russell Go, hopes to save lives as a mobile intensive care technician like his uncle.