The chances of survival increase to 32% if a bystander starts CPR and uses a defibrillator compared to only 12% if the police or ambulance crew use it. This underscores the importance of early intervention. The UK does poorly in terms of public health education about bystander CPR.
Heart Attack versus Cardiac Arrest
Emc2 Thank you for that link. I have read it and will share it if that is ok!
On a first aid for beekeepers course we trained on 3 different makes all of which had differences in operation, I wonder just how easy people find these to use, we were all puzzled using them on a dummy without the stress of a real person. Recently one of our members left the course and just a few hours later had to use one for real, think the collapsed person was very lucky.
SurreyAlan With the best of intentions, next year I am going to find a course to do…….you just never know do you. For me, I was really fortunate that within 30 seconds of me going into CA, my brother who is a trained first aider walked through the front door. After slapping me a couple of times to see if I was pretending, he threw me (all 20 stones!) onto the floor and set about CPR. People often say, god was smiling on you that day and I always reply, what if he was not and it just so happened my brother joined the party un-invited!
Thankful to hear your life was saved and it is a miracle if you think about it - what are the odds your brother would step thru the front door literally as u r having the cardiac arrest? I don’t mean to pry but for reasons of prevention for others, would the issue hve been picked up if you had gone for a regular annual heart check up with your cardiologist before you had your cardiac arrest?
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chlorox That is a good question. I have all my hospital notes, from when the ambulance arrived and it does not detail the cause. All I know for certain, is that I had a single stent fitted and in the 4 years since, have had no further issues. I would imagine that it was a narrowing of my main artery that caused the problem. 2 weeks after I was discharged, I had an ultrasound scan to check for muscle tissue damage and there was none.
I am going to tell you a funny story now. In fact two funny stories! This happened on Friday April 5th circa 1pm. I was taken to the local Emergency hospital which is 3 miles away where I was put into an enforced coma. Had the stent fitted. On the Saturday afternoon when my family were leaving when they said goodbye I showed signs of stirring. The same thing happened the next day. That Sunday after main visiting, my eldest son popped over on his own to see me and rang my wife to say I was sitting up in bed chatting away. The family had been warned that when I woke up they did not know if I would be brain damaged or not since I received CPR for 55 minutes, and that is a long time. ANyway, the next day, Monday at visiting a young lady Pyshio came in and said come on David, let’s get you out of bed and s ee if you can walk. Now, when you are in a coma you are catheterised which is fine but there is nothing they can do about number two’s! I pulled the sheets back, leapt out of bed, and said walk……I can do star jumps, and proceeded to! It was not a pretty sight but it made my family smile!
The next day I was transferred to another hospital for recovery. The first recollection I had was the Tuesday, waking up to find a lad I went to school with and had not seen since 1976 sitting in my room! Roll forward to Friday and my Consultant came in and asked how I was. I replied fine, when can I go home. He said you cannot, you are very unwell. You should not be here. I said I know, I ought to be at home. He said NO, I MEAN THAT YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE! So, I asked again about going home (my wife is disabled and I am her only carer). He said that is next time he came to see me I could remember his name, then that would be a good start! So, as soon as he left the room I took a pen and notepad and wrote his name down. As soon as I had lifted the pen from the paper his name vanished from my memory. I tried time after time. So, I got my laptop, went onto the trust website, downloaded his picture, put his name along the bottom and converted it over to a screen saver (If i had to do that again, now, I probably would not know where to start) so when he came in and I could not remember his name, easy peasy! Well, he never turned up but sent in an assistant. This was the Tuesday, a week after transfer to that hospital and 11 days post arrest. Again, I asked to go home to be told I was too ill at the moment. When you are ill, you do not realise it. I was receiving no treatment that I was aware of so what did they mean ill? I said look, I have the sort of mind that has to have a target to work to. What do I have to do in order to be released and reluctantly, she said pass a cognitive test. I think it was called The Peko test. I said well go ad get one. No, you are not ready. Go and get one and let us see by how much I fail. No. Yes I said so reluctantly she went to get one. Right said she, you have 15 minutes to asnwer and the pass mark is 84%. I sat the test. I managed to completely miss out answering 2 questions and I scored 86%! She was most put out so I said I presume that there is no reason to keep me now then!
It was a long hard road to recovery, probably the hardest thing I have ever faced in my life, yet here we are! I still smile when I see the test!
Kerry Packer, love him or loath him donated defib machines to all NSW ambulances following his chest grabber.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Packer_whacker
The beat for manual CPR is the Bee Gee’s Stayin Alive.
https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/how-to-do-cpr
Stroke identification is just as important I reckon.
Amberale The beat for manual CPR is the Bee Gee’s Stayin Alive.
What a brilliant bit of trivia matey!
Nellie the Elephant,trying to sing Bee Gees even in your head is way too hard.
SurreyAlan Not if you are the recipient…….lol
After my mates son got pericarditis after his Covid jab 💉 only 29 years old (he used to be a gym junkie lifting weights)… this topic certainly needs awareness as we going to be seeing a lot of heart related issues.
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Your story is a reminder for us to appreciate every day as a gift from God and to be thankful and grateful for just being alive and having the chance to make life better for ourselves and others every day - and to never lose hope and give up on the precious gift that is our lives…
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chlorox Thanks @chlorox……it has been an incredibly hard journey. However, a many will know I am a resilient old git! One of the biggest things to help me, was I wrote a short blog. It is intensely personal and looks at the event (and others) from all sides. I was lucky enough that both my sons who witnessed it and agreed to share their own thoughts. I will leave the link up here until tomorrow incase anyone would like a look.