Are you prepared to save a life?

By: Rachel Cook

Nearly 310,000 people die every year from coronary heart disease. This is almost half of all deaths every year. Coronary heart disease can cause sudden cardiac arrest, which is when the heart stops beating effectively. Cardiac arrest results in the need for Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), or more importantly, defibrillation. Defibrillation is an electrical shock delivered by an electrical device called an Automated External Defibrillator (AED). AEDs are very simple to use and are being put many different places every day such as airports, malls, and casinos. However, there are some places that do not have AEDs, or if they do, it takes a long time for them to get to the scene. This is when it is extremely important to know CPR. Early CPR increases the effectiveness of early AED use and results in a higher chance of survival. Every minute that care is delayed, a person’s chance of survival is reduced by 10%. Therefore, if more people were certified in CPR it would significantly increase the number of cardiac arrest victims being saved.


I was 15 when I first became certified in American Red Cross CPR. The only reason I got certified was because I planned on working as a lifeguard that summer. I never realized the importance of having lifesaving skills until I was faced with an unconscious two-year-old while lifeguarding one day. Though I never had to perform CPR, it opened my eyes to how important being prepared to save a life really is. Because I was prepared to act if needed, I want to encourage everyone to go out and get trained so that when an emergency presents itself, you will know what to do and be confident about it.

CPR combines a series of chest compressions and breaths to supply oxygen to the vital organs of the body, because without oxygen we cannot survive. It can be performed by one or two people and can use mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or a bag valve mask, which uses surrounding air rather than a person’s oxygen. For a sole rescuer the Red Cross recommends giving two breaths every cycle of 30 compressions. If you have two rescuers it would remain two breaths to 30 compressions unless you were rescuing a child or infant, in which case it would change to two breaths every cycle of 15 compressions.

CPR is only performed when the victim does not have a pulse. Many times people assume you would perform CPR on someone who had just suffered a heart attack. However, someone can be suffering a heart attack and still be very responsive and have a pulse, but just be in a lot of pain. A heart attack is simply when blood can no longer reach the heart. A heart attack can lead into cardiac arrest. Getting certified in CPR would train you to know the difference between the two and how to care for each one specifically.

The main type of CPR is CPR for the Professional Rescuer. It is the highest level of CPR training you can get without being a medical professional. It trains you to assist adults, children, and infants in the following skills: conscious and unconscious choking, rescue breathing, CPR, and Automated External Defibrillation (AED). Professions such as teaching, youth programming, athletic training, lifeguarding and anyone who works with people as their primary job should be trained in this level of CPR. I say these professions specifically because they come into contact with people more often, they have a higher chance of working with children and infants, and it may be a part of their job to respond the emergency.

Other types of CPR offered through the Red Cross are referred to as ‘Community CPR’ courses, which mean they are for the everyday person who wouldn’t necessarily need to be certified for their profession. The two options are Adult CPR or Adult, Child, and Infant CPR. Their names explain them. The two courses teach you the same skills, but the skills vary a little based on the age of the victim. Since Adult CPR would only train you to work on adults, this would be ideal for someone like a Resident Assistant who is only going to come into contact with an adult. However, to be prepared for every situation, CPR for the Professional Rescuer is the safest bet that will prepare you for most emergencies.

As technology improves more and more every day researchers are also finding out new things about CPR. This year there is new information out about compressions only CPR. Their belief is that for someone who is not trained in CPR, they could just perform compressions. Doing something is better than nothing. There has not been a drastic improvement with this new skill but found that it is equally as good as regular CPR when performing it on adults. However, the Red Cross has found that combining breaths with compressions is more effective when responding to children and infants.



Though CPR can do so much good for someone, it can also be very scary. I can speak for the belief that when an emergency occurs your knowledge will kick in and you will know what to do. But, for someone with no experience its best to be prepared for the worst. Everyone should know that performing CPR does break ribs, does separate cartilage, may cause vomiting, and the victim may not survive. In fact, the survival rate of CPR is actually very low, but can be increased by using an AED in accordance. According to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, only 4.6 percent of Americans who suffer cardiac arrest survive. The survival rate also has a little to do with your location. The study conducted research on approximately 20,000 people who had suffered cardiac arrest in the United States and the 4.6% survival rate raised or lowered depending on which state you lived in and their methods for rescuing victims and using an AED right away. On the low end of the scale, if you live in Alabama and suffer a cardiac arrest you only have a 3 percent chance of survival, where as if you live in Seattle, Wash. that rate increases to 16.3 percent. I was quite pleased to see that Iowa was also on the high end with a survival rate of 11 percent! However, if we could train more people in America to recognize and respond to an emergency we could increase these survival rates and save many more lives every year.

There are different organizations that give CPR certification; the main ones are the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association. The American Red Cross and the American Heart Association work closely together in that if an employer required Red Cross Certification, the Red Cross accepts American Heart Association certification, so they would not need to retake a class. Virtually, they train you to do the same thing and the most important thing, which is recognizing and responding to an emergency. However, they do have very minor differences like how to respond to a conscious choking victim. As a lifeguard I am pro American Red Cross, but as long as you are prepared to save a life, the name on your certification card doesn’t really matter.

The American Red Cross makes getting trained in CPR very simple. You can set up your own class for a group at a location that is convenient for you, take one through an authorized provider such as a local pool or university, or sign up for a class your chapter is already holding. The costs are relatively inexpensive and range from $30-$50. Most certifications last for two years, but if you decided to become a lifeguard as well you would need to re-certify every year since your main job is lifesaving. The re-certifying courses are usually cheaper since they are a shortened version of the regular class.

“As community members we need to know how to help one another, what better way than to be trained in CPR,” said Kelsey Bechthold, CPR instructor for the University of Northern Iowa Wellness and Recreation Services. I encourage everyone to think about if they would be ready to respond to an emergency. Get trained. Together, we can save thousands of more lives every year.

Images:

Manikin - By Rama (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.0-fr (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/fr/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

AED - By Stevenfruitsmaak (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons