The day after xmas, I went out to cross-country-ski, just on the snow-loaden golf-fields behind our apartment. I saw a person lying, too quiet, on the skiing track, and ran to him. It was a man, he had just taken off his skis and was lying on his back, he reacted not on my speaking and shaking, he was unconscious. I looked around, a young man was coming down the track and I asked him if he had a handy, luckily he had, (I have not) to call emergency, asked him to stay with the man while I ran back to the house for help. Within three to five minutes the young man and a man I found in the house were applying heart-massage and blowing air in his lungs. 15 minutes later ambulance people took over, giving the man three times an electro-shock, medical treatment etc. A helicopter came. After three quarters of an hour after I found him they flew him to the nearest town-hospital. 6 days later he was dead, he had stayed all time unconscious. He was 59 years, left a wife of about the same age and a son of 19. Some days after the accident I met them both.
( I promise to myself to take a course for heart massage and buy a prepaid handy for the case that I will find another person needing help in more remote circumstances, and I still wonder was it better if I had been able to start the heart-massage myself? ).
Fate (Black Swans?) happens, it means it can happen to me and it can happen to you.
Why do I relate this story here? It made me even more try to live as if everyday is my last day and enjoy every day. If you think: I endure so many months/years, and then I reach ere, and then I can live as I want, it can be after your time is over.
How much time do you have, living as you want?
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RealPerson
- Posts: 875
- Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2012 4:33 pm
J_ - This is a good reminder of how important it is to enjoy every moment. You never know! Getting trained in CPR is great. Since you found him unconscious, you don't know how long he had been there before you found him. Although CPR is important, an automatic external defibrillator (AED) is often essential, because many of these patients have ventricular fibrillation. This type of heart problem rapidly deteriorates and often cannot be resuscitated without an AED. That is why you see so many of these in public places such as airports, etc.
Given your level of training, you did admirably. You meeting with the family probably meant the world to them. What a wonderful gesture of goodwill.
Given your level of training, you did admirably. You meeting with the family probably meant the world to them. What a wonderful gesture of goodwill.
Call me a jerk, but from the training I've had in CPR. First off it changes slightly almost yearly. So they still don't know what works and what doesn't so I would NEVER have felt bad J. And another thing, the correct CPR will almost certainly break a few ribs. So if the person does survive the whatever happened.. they have all these medical bills from being hospitalized. And in America.. guess where they try to get that money from... OH Yeah.. from teh person that saved their life but broke their ribs.. so thank you very much for saving my life, but oh by the way heres a summons to appear in court because I'm suing you for breaking my ribs so that I can pay for my medical bills. So no thank you. I'm the head down and run really fast person when I see someone clinching their chest.
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RealPerson
- Posts: 875
- Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2012 4:33 pm
Second that here: most states have Good Samaritan laws that protect you from liability as a lay person, as long as you were reasonable, without acting as if you were trying to harm the person. For instance, sticking their head in a bucket of ice water and drowning them would not be covered by this law. However, breaking ribs with chest compressions would be covered by Samaritan laws.