I don’t even pretend to know, but thank you for making the effort. You did your best and that’s all anyone could ask of you.
I was first trained in CPR at Scout camp in the early Eighties, and at that time, both breathing and compressions were emphasized as important. A year or so later, we actually had to do CPR on a camper’s overweight visiting dad; he pulled through, fortunately. When I requalified two years ago, it was all about the compressions. Haven’t had to put my skills to use lately, I’m glad to say.
No, absolutely not. Doing something, anything, is the only way he had a chance at all.
I’m sorry he didn’t make it, but you did an awesome thing just by stepping up to help. They may not get a chance to thank you, but I’ll bet that your colleague’s family will be glad that you were there.
Last summer, we lost my wife’s uncle after he collapsed during his daily walk. As it turns out, someone saw this happen, called 911 and immediately began CPR. While David didn’t make it, just the knowledge that someone was there to help, to give him that one last bit of help and one last chance to survive was a huge comfort to the family. We never managed to find out the name of the person who did that, so we couldn’t thank him for his efforts, but our gratitude for him stepping up is undying.
If I lost my heartbeat here at work I’d be immensely grateful to know someone took a shot at keeping me alive, regardless of whether the mix was exactly right according to the latest protocols. And I’d add that the old-school count you relied on saved plenty of people.
No. The odds are against CPR working, no matter the technique used. CPR very rarely revives a person on its own. CPR buys time to get the patient to more advanced care. And with no CPR the odds of surviving a cardiac arrest are essentially zero.
The international standards still recommend rescue breaths. There is some new evidence I alluded to that may show up in the next standards update. Standards are revised about every 5 years at the meeting of ILCOR.
Bad CPR is better than no CPR. You did what you could. He probably wouldn’t have come back, no matter what anyone did.
I’ve done CPR dozens of times and the only ones to survive were those that arrested in the hospital, and those, mostly, children.
Doing it is better than not doing it, but only a little.
Great job on doing something most people wouldn’t. Sorry to hear he didn’t make it.
If I were you, I’d definitely at least take the afternoon off as a mental health day, if not the rest of the week. You could easily be traumatized by what happened, even if you were a volunteer EMT in the past.
Do NOT worry about this. He was dead when you got there- you couldn’t have made that worse. Feel good about being there to give him a chance and don’t beat yourself up. I agree that you probably need some time to mentally recover from the experience- go home.
I’m sorry they didn’t make it, but you did a great thing by taking some sort of action. The one thing we were told at training was that in the state the patient is in, you can’t make things worse. All you can do is give them a bit of a chance.
TV and Holywood have given us unrealistic expectations as to the likely outcome.
I’ve had to do it, it was about the most brutal thing I’ve ever had to do to someone and I was shaking for hours afterwards.
The British Heart Foundation ran a series of adverts featuring tough-guy actor and former footballer Vinnie Jones. It was a public service campaign promoting Hands-only CPR specifically to raise public awareness for those who have never had CPR training.
I mentioned most people will not do CPR. Promoting hands-on methodology was seen as a way to increase the chance that a rescuer will at least try something if they have never had formal training before.
Thanks all, I’ve had my last meeting and I’m heading home. I didn’t really know the colleague who died, other than to say good morning, he worked in a different section. What’s bugging me is people coming up and kind of looking at me, waiting for a reaction. I don’t really know what I feel, other than weird. Probably just going to put some jazz on and make a nice meal. Fortunately, my wife is coming back from a long business trip tonight, so I can be with the one person who gets me.
I know the feeling, mine was unsuccessful. I felt like I was in a cloud the rest of the day. I worked on him for 45 min. ( I have no training and was just doing my best) he was gray when I found him and I got the color to come back several times only to leave again. My wife kept calling 911 telling them a man was down in the alley and for some reason they assumed it was a drunk and just ignored her. He was a jogger who collapsed in the alley behind my home.
If I was related to the person who passed, I would be incredibly grateful that you tried to save them.
Your method might be a bit old-fashioned, but it was infinitely better than nothing.
It also is exactly how decent folk should behave.
Over in the How Many Times Have You Almost Died thread, someone brought up Qadgop’s attempt to save a little girl from drowning. I feel the same thing about your act as I do about his, that even though unsuccessful, at the very least you have inspired many people to do the right thing when faced with such a situation. Congratulations on being a wonderful human being.
I went through a failed CPR attempt earlier this year ( here is my SDMB thread). It’s a crazy experience. I later talked to an EMT friend and they definitely expressed that trying is better than not, even though most of the time CPR doesn’t work. Thank you for trying for your colleague. I would want someone to try for me.
If I was effectively dead or dying, I’d appreciate it that someone was at least trying to save me. As many have said, any help is better than no help at all.
And I would be with someone at my passing. Dying alone has to be the saddest way to go.
When I taught CPR I would tell my students that CPR is a procedure you perform on a dead person. There’s a very slim chance that you can coax that person back to the living side. But that one chance in many is still worth the effort.
NEVER beat yourself up about the fact that your CPR victim didn’t make it. You effort gave them an opportunity to have that slim chance of surviving
Now that I think of it, my most recent CPR trainer said the breathing component was dropped, in part, because in this age of AIDS and STDs most people are very squeamish about putting their mouths over that of what is often a total stranger. Rather than train people to do what most wouldn’t do anyway even in an emergency, it was dropped. Any truth to that, do you think?
Likely, as I got a similar story last time I re-trained (last July).
It was a Basic life-savers for healthcare providers course, and the trainer taught the 30:2 system. Then he told us that they no longer teach rescue breaths for straight CPR classes for non-healthcare and that standards dictate that we (carrying the BLS for Healthcare card) don’t need to perform rescue breaths if we do not want to, that compressions alone are okay.
