CPR and First Aid?

[Bottomlover]

I'm a scuba instructor and have to keep up my CPR and first aid training. I performed CPR on a woman who had just suffered a heart attack until the paramedics arrived and hit her with a defibrillator. She did not respond and was pronounced dead when she got to the emergency room. The ER doc told me that the woman had a pacemaker, and that people with pacemakers don't come back with CPR and shocks.

I've not had to perform CPR on anyone around the water, but I have been involved in rescues of and first aid to divers.

 

[baronvonschtupp]

I was in law enforcement in the late 1970's. I held a basic life support cert which was a notch below EMT and a few steps above First Aid and a cert in CPR. A couple of years after I left the department, all new officers were cross trained as EMT's.

I used both CPR and Basic Life Support on several occasions as I usually beat the ambulance and Fire Department by several minutes. They were so overwhelmed by demand back then. It was not unusual for a response time of 30 minutes for an ambulance and 15 minutes for the Fire Department. More often than not, the closest police unit was only a couple of blocks away.

Most of the victims I worked on survived, but not all. There were a few critical situations when if there was more than a 10 minute ETA for the ambulance I would transport the victim in my patrol car if I could do so without exacerbating the injury or condition. I handled heart attacks, gunshot and knife wounds, car accidents, burns, a myriad of other illnesses and injuries, and delivered three babies.

The Pre-cardial thump was part of the CPR training back then. For those of you that don't know what that is, it is the forceful blow delivered to the breastbone just before you start CPR. It was supposed to shock the heart into beating. Thankfully it is no longer included in current certification in my state as statistics show that more harm than good was done by administering the thump.

Since then research has found the compressions do not have to be as drastic and deep. I understand now that there is a new geriatric technique that is less likely to cause fractures.

I've let my certs lapse years ago, but if faced with being the only one around to have the skills, I'll take action and use what I have. Our state protects Good Samaritans by law.

 

[redpaint]

I used to teach both for the Red Cross. If you have a chance to take a class please do.