TLC Shows

[Michael]

allow it

"Allow" it? I thought we just agreed that CPR should be mandatory!

[EMT City Administrator]

"Allow" it? I thought we just agreed that CPR should be mandatory!

You must work for the papers. I am being mis-quoted. LOL

[Ridryder 911]

For a layperson CPR is a skill that must be practiced and used regularly, otherwise people forget how to do it, or get lazy on how to do it.

Not really a skill is it? How hard is it to teach and perform ? Fifth graders have been tested to be able to perform it without complications. Obviously it is not that hard anymore, we teach people how to do from DVD's This is not brain surgery folks!

Laypeople having CPR classes would probably do more harm than good.

Hmm you can't get worse than dead.... there is not a past tense version. So more harm, impossible. Without CPR prior to EMS, the patient has no chance of survival if it is a BLS unit and < 10%% for a ALS unit... basically without citizen CPR prior to EMS, your dead.

Laypeople already drag pts out of cars before EMS arrives. Thinks about what would happen if they improperly checked a pulse and began chest compressions. Their hands are too low and they break off the xiphoid process and lacerate the pt's liver. Even wore than that, they can compress at a funny angle and snap ribs in such a way that whey cause more internal injuries. In all reality the pt still has a pulse. Laypeople doing CPR once every 2 years is not enough practice to do quality BLS.

Without CPR, then we don't have to worry...their dead. You can live over those complications but you can't live over a stopped heart. I wished EMT's could perform al their skills at least once ecery two years... but, that is a different story. The same as EMT's; how many babies, does a medic delivery every two years ...Should we make EMT's deliver to be proficient?.. Again this is just CPR.

As for medical shows, I like watching House. I have not seen many errors on it. (there have been some though, Last week house exhibits wide complex SVT which immediately ceased into Asystole.

Another one, Scrubs, I crack up every time they intubate someone because it is so casual like they are not even looking at the pt.

Crazy doctor shows, you would think they would hire someone to make it more authentic.

If they really portrayed EMS the way it is in real life, no one would call us or ever enter the profession... 90% boredom and 10% sheer terror.

R/r 911

[Michael]

You must work for the papers. I am being mis-quoted. LOL

No, it is I who am being misquoted. You are allowing the resuscitation of dead threads, and I am insisting that any other policy constitutes tragic negligence.

Why is it sometimes so hard to get people to realize when I am agreeing with them?

[whit72]

I have to agree look at the succesful models around the country. Bystander CPR with defib is the only way to up the survival rates. Unless you can decrease the response times.

As far as Teaching bystander CPR to laypersons or requiring it. I believe you have to de-mystify it, people have to understand that they will not further injure or incapacitate a dead pt. Bad CPR is better then no CPR. Nor will they face litigation. Teach it without respiration, teach it with continuous compressions. Do what ever you have to do to get them to do it. That is the only way you will see increases in the survival rates of cardiac arrest pts.

Give them discounts on their insurance or tax deductions. Most still wont decide to engage the cardiac arrest pt. However if everyone is trained there is more of a chance that someone will intervene. People dont usually arrest in a crowd full of strangers, so if you have a family member trained in CPR they will be much more likely to get involved.

For the most part I agree with what Rid has to say on this site. I also have been, along with my co-workers part of a couple succesful arrest to discharge BLS resusitation efforts without pre-hospital ALS intervention. So your statment about about an arrest pt having no chance of survival if a BLS truck is dipatched is untrue. Maybe in your experience its true. However in my experience it isnt. Time is the mitigating factor in arrest pts. So shorter response times will translate to higher success rates.

[Ridryder 911]

Yes, I even had successful BLS resuscitation, however; less than 1-4% nationally is not really enough to call it a success! Until, there is something new that is all we can do.. but, if was another medical procedure we would had called it a failure and not be used.

R/r 911

[whit72]

I agree with you completely, those pts benefited from pure luck of the draw, it was location location location, based on a succesion of circumstances that allowed for those pts to be resuscitated. I believe the only true way to affect the outcomes of successful resuscitation is by narrowing the response times, and along with bystander CPR.

I understand financially it is not feasible to place an ambulance on every corner of every community in America. However when you reach that five or so minute mark without intervention, whether it being CPR or defib. The percentages drop quickly from dismal to bleak with every passing minute. Its a losing battle anyway when your success rates lie in the single digits. However I believe if we were able to get more people involved, to dispell their fears of further harm and litigation, we could possibly get those survival rates to atleast the acceptable range.

Lets face it people die, they have underlying issues, or predisposed conditions that a far beyond the realm of the EMS providers. There are some however that meet them criteria, and if the so called stars line up as far bystander CPR and the arrival of EMS in a timely fashion, the extent of procedures at the receiving hospital, those peolpe have a good chance of returning to their previous state. If one of those factors is not attainable then the success rates will suffer miserably.

You cant just be dead, you have to be dead and a little bit lucky to survive an arrest.

That last sentence isnt making much sense to me but I think you get the drift. LOL

[dlinfiniti]

what they really need to start doing in laypeople cpr courses is to actually tell them about the noises cpr makes when done right. People sometimes are taken aback when they hear the cracking and think they're hurting the patient more and stop immediately

[Niftymedi911]

Whatever happened to that TV show Paramedics on TLC?

I used to watch it all the time, it was good to see the differences in services and geographical locations. I used to pick up a lot of the errors the medics or FF's would do.

I wish it would come back, I think our agency would be a perfect episode with all the various medical and trauma calls we get. Believe it or not its most legitimate stuff. But everyonce and a while we'll get BS.

[Niftymedi911]

I have to second that BLS save, about 2 months ago, I was responding from out of zone to a call about 10 miles away. FD was on scene in 4 minutes, FD is BLS, they Combitube'd the p/t began CPR via the new guidelines, and then shcoked her twice after 4 minutes of CPR, UEA 10 minutes after dispatched, EMS ALS, We got on scene started 2 lines, contiued CPR, and approx 45 seconds after the lines were started, she came back with a pulse producing rythm, no medications were used!!!! That was a first. And when I mean first, I mean it, this FD is kinda a redneck style department if ya know what I mean. BLS, bear minimum on training, they wear their brother's bunker gear, the senior ones aren't the brightest. Most of the time I kid you not they'll just stand there until EMS gets there. So for FD to get this BLS save it was kinda funky, weird, awsome, and made a believer of the new guidelines out of me! The p/t walked out of the hospital 11 days after the incident.