—My co-worker was a volunteer EMT, so I urged her to go out and help him. She refused, giving me a disgusted look. “He might be sick, or something.”—
Weird behavior for a trainedc EMT. Its true that going CPR without a mask is dangerous these days, but even you aren’t comfortable doing rescue breaths, it can’t hurt to go out and see if there’s anything else you can do (and there sometimes is).
—Had I known CPR, I would have tried it myself, but I’ve heard that rather than helping, an uneducated person might actually HURT, rather than help.—
Wel, it’s hard to hurt someone that’s already dead. The most important part is to make sure they have no pulse or breathing before starting: but if they’re definately coded, bouncing their chest up and down and blowing in their mouth, even in the wrong rythmns, is better than nothing. Like I said: once hearts stop or go into fib, they very rarely come back to a healthy rythmn on their own.
My dad did CPR on a homeless/drunken guy who had a heart attack. (Dad was a first responder / search and rescue guy).
The guy threw up in his mouth as he started breathing.
Took my dad a couple of days to get the wino smell to go away.
He didn’t regret it though, the guy made it after a several week stay at the hospital, and came around to thank my dad and tell him he was sobering up. He stayed in touch and sober for about a year, then started drinking again and disappeared.
Made my dad kinda melancholy since he really hoped the guy would take advantage of life.
At the hospital, though, the doctors told my father how rare it was to have CPR really help.
My sister, who can sometimes be an emotionally over-wrought, drama-queen type of person, had a similar experience. She’s had to use her CPR training only once, while she happened to be walking by a barber shop. Someone ran out asking bystanders if they knew CPR. In she went, and found an obese gentleman laying on the ground. He was already blue, and in final stages of breathing (can’t recall the medical term she used to describe this stage) but she gave it a go anyway. When the EMT’s got there shortly thereafter, they knew immediately it was no good but gave it a go also. They pronounced him on the scene.
The point is that my sister had no reaction to it either. Very surprising for everyone but she just felt nothing. She did what she could and moved on. She felt it was simply this gentleman’s time and there was nothing anyone could have done. The gentleman turned out to be the local firechief, one week before retirement, which is sad for him and his family but really not the end of the world for anyone else, is it?
In our culture, doesn’t it seem like we sort of try to avoid thinking about death, but yet heroic measures must be taken to Prevent It At All Costs! But death is as much part of life as sex, birth, eating, sleeping, etc. It just is. I was proud of my sister for trying to help and just as proud of her for not getting over-wrought and letting it haunt her. This, IMHO, indicates a balanced, healthy response to an admittedly sad situation but as others have pointed out above, not a personally sad situation.
Last year, a TWENTY-THREE year-old male coworker pitched over in front of my desk. What to do? Eagle Scout training/Navy training. 911, CPR, non-responsive. Grady took 30 minutes to arrive. No luck.
It’s still a bad memory, but I take solace in the fact that if ANYTHING could have helped, it might have been my chest-pumping and loud-counting and breathing and stuff. Good on you, mate. I’ve been there (trying to resucitate a dead guy) and dealing with the aftermath.
Folks acted like I was a hero for a few days, even though he died. I was just the closest guy that knew what to do at that particular time. I think that’s your situation. Good for you for trying, it usually turns out bad.
