To go along with our posts about heart attack, we thought it was important to cover the basics of what to do if someone’s heart has stopped. It is worth revisiting this again and again so that if you ever find yourself in an emergency situation you react automatically. You’ll see how important this was in the second video below, where people are treating their friend.
Various methods of CPR have been developed, but recently continuous chest compression CPR has been in favour. It is certainly the easiest method for beginners to learn and remember as shown in this video
the steps are
- check your own safety
- shake the person, saying “Are you OK?”
- if no response start chest compression and do NOT stop (swap places with someone else every 30 seconds if possible) at the same time, get help – ask a bystander to call emergency services (111 in New Zealand)
You can get more information from St John’s, which is a bit more complex, and very detailed information from the NZ resuscitation council, but nothing replaces a hands-on training course.
It is unusual to get video of a real resuscitation, but BBC cameras were filming a ‘Helicopter Heroes’ documentary at a rescue service headquarters when the telephone rescue dispatcher collapsed. The video shows how the paramedics automatically stepped into resuscitation mode in spite of it being their friend they were treating. I think this is one of the most moving videos I’ve ever seen.
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