CPR
CPR stands for
cardiopulmonary resuscitation. It combines chest compressions and rescue breaths to give a person the best chance of survival following a cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest is when your heart suddenly stops beating properly. It’s not the same as a heart attack. With cardiac arrest, the heart’s electrical system malfunctions, and the heart stops pumping blood to the rest of the body — including the brain and lungs. This causes the person to collapse, stop breathing, and become unresponsive almost immediately. Without quick treatment e.g. CPR or a defibrillator – cardiac arrest can be fatal within minutes.
In this next exercise, I rolled up my sleeves and got on my knees.
Meet Annie – my helpful volunteer for the next 30 – minutes. In a very particular order, I placed the heel of my left hand on Annie’s breastbone, ensuring my fingers were wide a part. Next, I placed my right hand on top of my left, locking my fingers firmly into the palm of my left hand. With my left-hand fingers still lifted and my elbows locked, I used all of my upper body strength (not just arms) to administer 30 compressions to Annie’s chest, followed by 2 rescue breaths for 2 seconds each. The rescue breaths involved tilting Annie’s head backwards to raise her chin, then gently pinching her nose before administering 2 breaths into Annie’s mouth.
This exercise was very strenuous. And to think someone administering CPR by themselves would need to do this until additional help arrives is really something.
Concluding this exercise, Akmal showed us a defibrillator and how it works in real life scenarios. A defibrillator is a device that gives a high energy shock to the heart of a casualty in cardiac arrest. “One good thing about Central London is you’re usually close to a defibrillator” – Trainer, Akmal Khan. This was comforting to know, although, our Office Manager did reassure us that we have two defibrillators in our office, one located on each floor. Having used a defib in this exercise, I can attest that it is very straight forward to use and comes equipped with a voice mechanism that explains what you need to do.
