An Idiot's Guide to CPR
What always astounds and annoys me is when I see people performing CPR on movies or TV - and doing it horribly wrong. Either the victim rescucitates themselves magically after a few presses, the dead come back to life or they just get the method completely wrong.
One of the first things you need to know about CPR is why it happens. When someone goes into cardiac arrest, the body is at a constant risk of death. While the heart is not stopped, it is incapable of pumping blood through the body and carrying oxygen around. On TV or in the movies, people are constantly shown reviving after one or two presses, or two or three blows to the mouth. This is not how it works. CPR is not an attempt to restore life to a dying or dead victim or to revive consciousness. There is a reason that First Aid classes tell you to call an ambulane before you attempt CPR. This is because you will need to do it constantly until the ambulance arrives to take over. In essence, you become the heart in the heart's absence, pumping blood - and the oxygen both from your breath and residual oxygen in the blood - around the body. This does not ensure survival, but it raises the slim chance of it a little higher and reduces the risk of brain damage. However, if CPR is not performed fast enough or if the CPR-giver cannot sustain it, that chance will diminish. The time it takes? Six minutes after the initial blood flow stops.
Generally the rate of compressions (the presses on the victim's chest) is set at around 100 per minute. In First Aid we are taught to give two rescue breaths after each thirty, lifting our head away between them. This is both to take fresh oxygen in for ourselves and to avoid being spat up on should the victim vomit involuntarily. This pattern must repeat unbroken until the ambulance arrives.
The pattern is simple. You brace the heel of your hand in the middle of the chest, and place your other hand behind it, locking your fingers. Lean over the body at approximately a 90 degree angle and lock your arms into a straight position. The amount of pressure required varies depending on whether it is a child or an adult and it is actually not advised to perform CPR on children. It is exhausting and hard work, especially if you are not used to it, and it may turn out to be unrewarding in the end if it were not performed in time. Remember also that when you call for an ambulance you should ask for one with a defibrillator. Contrary (again) to TV this does not start the heart. Instead it sends an electric pulse to interfere with the electric pulse in your heart, effectively stopping the fibrillation and allowing the heart to return to it normal rhythm. This too is not 100% effective and ventricular fibrillation will inevitably be fatal without this treatment.
I understand that TV likes to make things more interesting. That they've been showing the same way of things for so long it would be difficult to change and most people wouldn't believe it if they saw the infinitely more boring (to the general public) truth. But I swear to god, everyone should take a first aid course once in their life, if only so they know what they should actually be doing and not what TV tells them will magically revive their grandma.
One of the first things you need to know about CPR is why it happens. When someone goes into cardiac arrest, the body is at a constant risk of death. While the heart is not stopped, it is incapable of pumping blood through the body and carrying oxygen around. On TV or in the movies, people are constantly shown reviving after one or two presses, or two or three blows to the mouth. This is not how it works. CPR is not an attempt to restore life to a dying or dead victim or to revive consciousness. There is a reason that First Aid classes tell you to call an ambulane before you attempt CPR. This is because you will need to do it constantly until the ambulance arrives to take over. In essence, you become the heart in the heart's absence, pumping blood - and the oxygen both from your breath and residual oxygen in the blood - around the body. This does not ensure survival, but it raises the slim chance of it a little higher and reduces the risk of brain damage. However, if CPR is not performed fast enough or if the CPR-giver cannot sustain it, that chance will diminish. The time it takes? Six minutes after the initial blood flow stops.
Generally the rate of compressions (the presses on the victim's chest) is set at around 100 per minute. In First Aid we are taught to give two rescue breaths after each thirty, lifting our head away between them. This is both to take fresh oxygen in for ourselves and to avoid being spat up on should the victim vomit involuntarily. This pattern must repeat unbroken until the ambulance arrives.
The pattern is simple. You brace the heel of your hand in the middle of the chest, and place your other hand behind it, locking your fingers. Lean over the body at approximately a 90 degree angle and lock your arms into a straight position. The amount of pressure required varies depending on whether it is a child or an adult and it is actually not advised to perform CPR on children. It is exhausting and hard work, especially if you are not used to it, and it may turn out to be unrewarding in the end if it were not performed in time. Remember also that when you call for an ambulance you should ask for one with a defibrillator. Contrary (again) to TV this does not start the heart. Instead it sends an electric pulse to interfere with the electric pulse in your heart, effectively stopping the fibrillation and allowing the heart to return to it normal rhythm. This too is not 100% effective and ventricular fibrillation will inevitably be fatal without this treatment.
I understand that TV likes to make things more interesting. That they've been showing the same way of things for so long it would be difficult to change and most people wouldn't believe it if they saw the infinitely more boring (to the general public) truth. But I swear to god, everyone should take a first aid course once in their life, if only so they know what they should actually be doing and not what TV tells them will magically revive their grandma.