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Posted

I can just imagine the scene in that house.

Parent: Oh my! Little Johnnie has stopped breathing!

Concerned friend: Don't worry, I know CPR.

P: What will we do? What will we do?

CF: You go call 9-1-1, and I will revive him

P: Hello 9-1-1? I need an bambulance to XXXX ABC street(with much noise in the background)

Operator: What is your emergency ma'am?

P: My little boy isn't breathing! Oh lordy, lordy, lord!

O: Ma'am, can you tell me what that noise is?

P: My friend is doing CPR

CF: Now Johnnie, this would be so much easier if you would just hold still!

Johnnie: (screaming) Mom! This guy was trying to kiss me! Get away from me!

Oh the laughs we could have.

Posted
I guess you can say they had a successful save... :wink: LOL

If you count the damage to the heart done by the aunt...

Posted

wow you guys are hilarious.....yes i remember the couse work and the lecture...just didn't understand the fear. :shock: :lol::lol:

Posted
yes i remember the couse work and the lecture...just didn't understand the fear.

Good! Then you obviously got more out of the class than your friend did, lol.

Don't worry about silly theoretical legal what-ifs. Just do the right thing. :wink:

Posted

You know, I once had this small fear rattling around in the back of my head, that lay people tend to confuse 'heart attack' with 'cardiac arrest', as in a story will list someone as 'having a heart attack and dying in front of me,' when of course it should say 'went into cardiac arrest and died'.

So I had this fear that someone would learn CPR, and figure that is proper treatment for a heart attack. I thought, this is silly, but, knowing the people in CPR class, well...

So I'm working and this nice lady comes up to me and says she learned CPR. I congratulated her. She also said that she had a member of her church group, who had problems with his heart, he started sweating and had to sit down, said he felt like he was having a heart attack, and she wondered, should she have started compressions on him?

True story. I can't make this stuff up.

Posted

I ask the following question in all of the Adult CPR classes that I teach:

True or False: All Heart Attack victims have (or should) receive CPR.

Of course the answer is False, and believe it or not... most of us Missouri Rednecks get it right.... but it does lead into a very interesting discussion about the difference... it's worked well for me. As has been said time and time again in this forum... education is the key!

Posted

I'm completely with you, Asys. There are two very significant misconceptions that lay providers tend to take away from CPR classes. First, that CPR is for heart attacks, and second -- and more frightening -- is that heart attacks are the only thing CPR is for.

Unfortunately, the structure of CPR education, having been developed by the American HEART Association, leads students directly to both conclusions by the way it is presented. What is the first hour of a CPR class? Talk about heart attacks. So it is really no wonder that people get this mistaken impression. Of course, good luck talking the AHA into changing the focus. They have their agenda, and they intend to pursue it.

Anytime I teach CPR, I make a very clear point to the students that this is NOT about heart attacks, and all the bull$hit they just heard about heart attacks has nothing to do with the CPR they are about to learn. I make sure they understand that CPR is for any person they ever encounter who has no pulse or respirations, regardless of what caused it, so long as they are not stiff and they still have a head. Then I reinforce it by giving them a patient "scenario" each time they practice. And those scenarios will be electrocution, drowning, shooting, MVA, snakebite, fall, allergic reaction, etc... The one scenario I do NOT give them is a heart attack so they will begin to think beyond the film example.

I agree, the silly way that CPR classes are currently structured leads to both inappropriate use of CPR on heart attack victims, as well as underuse of CPR on non heart attack victims. It takes about five minutes to fix that problem in a CPR course, but I know of very, very few instructors who do it. And since less than one percent of CPR instructors nationwide are professional rescuers, most don't even know the problem exists.

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