how to administer CPR which is I imagine we hear so much about it I guess it's
the most effective life-saving procedure or technique that we we now know that is
available is that true that's correct though for something that we can do
without any type of equipment medical equipment something that can be done
with almost nothing at all uh-huh and what is the point of CPR what does it do
CPR is an acronym for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and what it does the
compressions when you depress on the patient's chest what you actually do is
you move blood through the heart you're circulating blood through the heart and
when you blow in the patient's mouth what you're doing is you're breathing
for him you're inflating his lungs and that is in essence what we do for
ourselves when we can do that okay so okay all right let's see I see the thing
that concerns me about it is I always worry about whether I hit the right spot
or not because I've taken a course and then but I haven't done any kind of
refresher courses and the thing that concerns me you know they always
emphasize getting the right part of the chest so I think if I hit the wrong part
of the chest I could stop the heart totally well you could definitely do
some damage over if you didn't have proper hand placement oh good let's hope
you haven't had to do this on anyone yeah well let's hope all right so proper
hand let's let's let's walk us through it here okay with the with paramedic
officer how assisting us what he has there is a Chris clean mannequin a
mannequin used for practicing CPR I should stress that you should not attempt
this on someone that is alive and well and doing well and breathing on their
own it is very it is a very very dangerous procedure if you are not a
trained in it and you do it the procedure on someone that is not
required of it okay so if you just do it make some button as I'm sorry if you
just do it to somebody like if I want to go home and rehearse this afternoon on
somebody who's fine you could cause them to have a heart attack well you could
cause some definite damage okay to some of the to the heart as well as some of
the other organs it within the chest cap so say it again so everybody hears it do
not do not underscore please do not practice this on the people that are
not in distress in the sense of that they have pulse and they have
respirations they are actually moving air and they do have a pulse please do
not underscore do not do this as an adjunct to that you should not perform
this procedure unless you have been trained properly to do the procedure
because you can do more harm than good absolutely how do you get trained
properly well you can consult your local American Heart Association or the
American Red Cross okay because they give courses all the time yes they do
and it's something that if you have not been involved in you owe it to yourself
you are to the family members as the people mentioned earlier you saw the
cases you heard the testimonies it is extremely and how long is the course the
course is a matter of it depends on where you take it okay it can be a couple
of hours it can be a few hours depending on how deep they go into the course and
when you come out you will receive a card saying that you are you have been
trained I should say in CPR all right so let's let's demonstrate officer how
okay okay he will be doing one man CPR what you should attempt to do first is
to acknowledge or at least establish that the patient is in fact not sleeping
or that he is is not moving air on his own excellent point if I may stop you
here officer how excellent point that I think Sherry made earlier usually you're
not gonna find them looking as clean and as good as this dummy no no no which is
the thing I think we need to emphasize you know usually people in distress don't look
like this yeah no quite to the contrary and what you will find is patients more
often than not blue in color even coming out of their mouth yes yes even people
of color will take on a different tone you will see and you will know that they
that there's something seriously wrong black people turn blue without a doubt
then we're black and blue very good something learn something new every day
okay go ahead and so what you should do as I said establish that he is you
should shake him and shout are you okay are you okay then the very next thing
that you should do is send for help did you call for help he has called for help
and there's an ambulance on the way train paramedics hopefully will be at
your side to help you out in just a matter of a couple of moments clean his
mouth yeah yeah he's cleaning the saliva he's cleaning the saliva and mucus from
around the patient's mouth yeah hopefully it's not lunch as I believe one
of them sure I say yeah let's hope it's not soup he is ventilating the patient
to establish that there is an airway prior to that I should mention that what
he did was he flexed the head he flexed he put his hand on top of the
forehead and his other hand under the chin could you demonstrate that again
and he lifted back in an attempt to open the patient's airway what that means and
in lay jargon is that he simply tilted the head back to bring the tongue
forward so that air could pass through and if there was if it was just a matter
of him having his head tilted down and blocking his airway he saw that then he
attempted to ventilations to make sure that he would that there wasn't an
obstruction as you can see the chest rises okay and the moment you do that
will you see the chest rise if there is not a blockage you should see the chest
rise yes okay and all he did was do some short breaths into that well he did a
short breath and one portion that we did on that was the look listen and feel
while you are looking why you are looking down the patient's chest when
you have the the airway open when you've tilted his head back you're looking down
his chest to see if there's air movement as well as you are you have your ear to
the side of his mouth to see if you can feel his hair okay now with the two
ventilations he sees he's checking for a pulse a carotid pulse which is on the
side of the neck to see if that was adequate to start the circulation once
again finding no pulse he knows that now he has to do compressions chest
compressions and that is to circulate the blood proper hand placement which he
will go through how many times you do that those were 15 15 compressions on
one person CPR you do 15 compressions and then you go back to two
ventilations okay 15 to 15 to that's correct why 15 well because that comes
as close as you can possibly come to the pulse rate or the heart rate of an
individual okay pumping the blood around all right when we come back we'll
continue this and learn what to do when someone has something stuck in their
throat and obviously I just had a question is it you know in the middle of
a panic situation I don't want to get so hung up on 15 and 2 and 4 what's the
bottom line what do you actually absolutely have to be doing well that's
a good question you absolutely have to do something you should do something and
once you are trained properly in CPR what you will you will have an awareness
within that you yourself didn't know that you had and those numbers will come
back to you I need to stress again at this point that this this demonstration
is not an attempt to teach CPR but simply just a demonstration after
calling for emergency assistance you should definitely do as close to that
rhythm as you possibly can if you cannot think of the numbers but please do
something 15 to and you do it four times or what you can do it four times that is
taught in the course doing it four times over before checking to see if you have
in fact restarted the heart if you will and restarted ventilations yeah it
wasn't clear to me whether you were squeezing the nose when you're
breathing down the throat or not I wasn't sure yes he was he was squeezing
the purpose of pinching the nose office to prevent the air that you blow into
the patient's mouth from just simply returning back through the patient's
nose as I as I mentioned that was a part that was not omitted for a reason but
in this procedure we were just simply showing or demonstrating what to do and
not attempting to teach the class we're demonstrating what to do in hopes that
all of you are going to make some kind of commitment somebody in your family
will make a commitment to go to the Red Cross or go to the fire department
because they're taught these courses are taught all over the country yes okay
all right who had a question here yes yes isn't there some kind of kit you
can buy for CPR mouth-to-mouth resuscitation that you could buy and
having your purse at all times if you don't want to just do the mouth and
have one here I mean you could keep it on hand or if you take well this is
something for for those that are that are not so accustomed to the mucus and
saliva and vomit us as we are this is something that can be purchased at any
and this is not a promo for anyone so I'll hide the labels this is something
that can be purchased at any medical supply store and what it is it's a mask
that can fit in any pocket or purse you can use this mask to place into the
patient's mouth if you will you cover it well and then your mouth goes over the
face and nose like keeping your purse at all times I would think you take that
course they could probably give it to you maybe sure absolutely then you will
not you won't be so apprehensive then when the time comes because it is I know
you know Becky ten years later is still feeling badly about it but I don't think
most people who see somebody laying down on the ground with saliva coming up out
of their mouth you know see looks at that as being very attractive especially
if you're not accustomed to doing it that is what we do for a living and it's
still not easy for us especially when you talk when you talk about the kids
yeah you know what you all should probably do is have you know that little
charlie dummy guy there you should have like mucus and stuff coming out of his
mouth so that people at least get a little customs of this is what it looks
like then they probably wouldn't watch take take the course and you may
experience it okay we'll be back in a moment back in a moment
after a Jan Brown's father suffered a near fatal heart attack two years ago
she embarked on a project that resulted in a 30-minute home video emergency action
which teaches viewers how to handle common life-threatening emergencies
until medical help arrives so you did this to educate people stand up please
yes I wanted something for the average person because they don't know what to do
as you as we found out today that they could practice along with like an
exercised tape and this is inexpensive it's fast and you can do it in the
convenience of your own home and if you've had a class which I had had and
forgotten everything then this is a good way to it's a good refresher course and
then what do you get the tape you can get the tape that you have an 800 number
I understand and they'll give you all the information it's at blockbusters and
Walden books and and so on put this on your refrigerator that'll tell you how
many compressions and breaths so you won't forget and there's a quick and
there's a phone number sticker that you put by the phone with all the numbers on
it and this is this isn't for these people and I'm sure you meant to go back
and take another class too I meant to I meant to get around to it this is a good
thing you did turning what could have been a horrible horrible situation into
something positive so we appreciate it thanks a lot
all right the procedure the procedure I understand is different for children
than it is for adults yes it is over of course the the children are much smaller
and just as a footnote these are the ones that are difficult even for the
trained people I'm sure anyone that that would be viewing would agree with me
that it's hard to work on children only because of the emotions a paramedic
Allen has joined us and what she will demonstrate is the procedure for one
person and it only takes one person to do an infant CPR you can cradle the
patient or the infant within one arm tapping his feet that will usually arouse
an infant tapping his feet shaking and shouting and he doesn't he doesn't
respond you would then look listen and feel you're tilting the head back
clearing the airway and you're establishing whether or not there's air
movement or there is a pulse on the patient for the children we would use
smaller puffs of areas they call it smaller airs because the lungs are so
small and sensitive using your mouth to cover both the the the infant's mouth
and nose so your mouth covers the whole thing right as she shows there the mouth
covers the both the nose and the mouth small puffs of air small puffs of air
and then when you move to the compression stage as she is checking a
pulse on the on the infant's arm as you move to the compression stage finding
that there is no pulse you move to the compression stage you would not need to
use the heel of your hand as he did on the on the adult mannequin you would use
your two fingers I think as she's showing there the two fingers and press
just gently over the the infant's chest just pressing it lightly knowing that
you can cause damage