If I have a heart attack, will an defibrilator work if I am lying on a metal floor?
I am a school band director, so this time of year, I spend a lot of time at football games. Many of the stadiums we visit have metal bleachers, where both the seats and the “floor” are metal. Our league requires that an ambulance be present during the entire footbal game, so I know that a defib machine, along with people trained to use it, would be available. When using the device, I know it is important that no one be touching the patient or they might get a shock as well. If I were to keel over, would they have to drag me onto the grass to use the defib device? Would the metal bleachers carry the defib charge to other people in the area?
Just curious. I’m now going to enjoy my egg breakfast taco and hope that the cholesterol doesn’t make me have to test tonight’s medical team.
I am not an expert on this, but I did just take my CPR refresher course this week. It included a segment on using and AED (automatic electronic defibrillator.)
One of the instructions for using the AED is a warning to make sure that the person is not in a puddle of water before operating. I would presume that it would be an equally bad idea (for the reasons you mentioned) to apply it to a patient on a metal bleacher. I would think the ambulance personnel would be able to put you on a backboard, or on blankets to help insulate the current from traveling away from your body into the bleachers.
Is your percussion section this wild, that you’re concerned they’re going to drive you to a heart attack? My band director always claimed we’d be the death of him…
Not just the drummers… I was actually concerned that my fondness for eggs and bacon in the morning might be the death of me. Then I got to thinking how football games have the most immediate medical assistance available, with the aforementioned ambulance, the team doctor (a real MD), and the team’s trainers. If I were to have a heart attack, a football game would be a pretty good place to do it. Then I got to thinking about the metal bleachers and how when they shock me, everyone sitting in the bleachers will get a shot in the butt. Most of those standing will be wearing shoes, so might not get the shock. My drummers probably wouldn’t even notice I keeled over – it’s not like they watch me anyway! :rolleyes:
While I was in college here in Texas, I was an EMT working for the university’s EMS (which was only a little over a year ago). I’ve never actually had to defib an individual, though have had to perform CPR on a number of patients. However, my training has taught me to remove an individual from any conductive surface before shocking.
YWalker is correct in assuming that a patient would be placed on a backboard before shocking. Most backboards these days are a non-conductive plastic that allows for x-ray translucence. So, even if they weren’t able to evacuate you from the stands, the persons around you would be safe.
Defibrillating on a metallic surface would be most dangerous to the person being defibrillated. There’s a high risk of burns from where the electricity would shoot out of the body. The people around you would mostly feel like they were kicked or punched where the electricity entered their body.
One of my favorite EMS stories (and I have a lot of them) is when a friend was working years ago on an ambulance and was called out to a full arrest. The paramedic knelt down to shock the patient (sometime into arriving on scene) and accidentally kneeled into body fluid, unknowingly. He pushed the buttons on the defibrillator paddles (mostly we use pads these days where we don’t have to touch the patients) and was blown across the room. That didn’t inspire much confidence from the patient’s family.
Basically, if your medics are worth their salt, they’ll pull your butt off of the stands anyway and not risk their health. If your precussion section is as insane as mine was when I was drum major of my band in high school, I still wouldn’t rule them out for the cause of an MI. :eek:
I’m a critical care nurse and my husband is a paramedic.
With the newer, biphasic defibrillators aka the AEDs measure the resistance between the pads, so little or no current exits the patient. So, yes it would be safe.
The older monophasic models, those with the paddles, could cause a problem, but they have been replaced in all pre-hospital units, at least in this state.
We looked up our state’s regulations. They have no guidelines for metal surfaces. They do not advocate moving a patient prior to defib, since the time from arrest to defib is a major factor in long term survival.
The best way to find out what your medics are mandated to do is, next game, walk over to the aid car, and ask them. They have standing orders for any event.
Heh. It has been so long since I’ve had to deal with any patient contact (and having never had to even use an AED), I knew that I should have either not posted or looked it up, assuming someone would know better than I. Thanks picunurse! I had forgotten about the biphasic properties of most new defibrillators.
Though, with the antiquated equipment I’ve seen owned by most stand-by/transfer services here in Texas still use, I think I might still try and seperate my patient from metal.
My band director always claimed we’d be the death of him…