Untrained
Though it is always best to know what you are doing and how to do it well, there are ways you can help until medical crews arrive and there is no one else available that has CPR training. Hands-only CPR is better than nothing, and this means doing chest compressions uninterrupted until the paramedics arrive. However, rescue breathing isn’t part of the untrained CPR approach. It is important to understand that hands-only options aren’t as good as regular cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but again, it is better than nothing. If you are interested in taking classes in NJ or anywhere else, it is fairly easy to do. There are many classes available to you and they take between four and eight hours to complete. You will be certified to do CPR for two years and then must renew your license. A few hours of study to save lives seems very worth your effort.
Trained Options
CPR comes in different forms for different people. The general public won’t get the same training as paramedics and other emergency personnel, such as nurses or doctors. Regular people will usually receive CPR AED training, which may also include first aid. This is the most basic CPR information available and will allow you to help those who have stopped breathing. These classes generally provide training for adults, kids and infants, though there is usually a pediatric CPR option if you are a babysitter and tend to be around children more than adults. BLS (Basic Life Support) CPR is meant for healthcare professionals, such as EMTs, dental and medical assistants, along with doctors and nurses. This is generally meant to be in a hospital or in an EMT van where special oxygen squeeze masks and bags are used. Because it doesn’t take much to become trained, it is recommended for anyone to take and pass the CPR course. It can be beneficial for parents, those caring for older adults, personal trainers, babysitters, along with almost anyone else.
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Notwithstanding the facility’s policy and notwithstanding her actual job at Glenwood Gardens, many maintain that the woman caller could have given CPR to Lorraine, not as an employee, but as a mere bystander, and she could have done this without fear of suit because of the state’s Good Samaritan laws. Being a trained nurse, they maintain, she knows how to administer proper CPR and should have at least tried resuscitating Lorraine. But should she?
Perhaps because she is a trained nurse, the woman caller knows that she cannot perform CPR, if it is to be done right, on Loraine’s frail 87-year old frame without possibly crushing the rib cage. If you want blood to circulate, you really have to push as hard as you can to compress the chest by two inches inward, and you have to do this at the rate of 100 compressions per minute, and you have to keep on doing this until the professional rescuers arrive. Where already rendered brittle by age, the ribs and possibly even the sternum would have likely cracked. Bone fragments would have likely punctured the lungs. Lorraine would have suffered terribly. For an elderly person, getting CPR can be brutal. An English doctor specializing in adult and elderly health care named Nick Edwards likened it to “going ten rounds with the boxer Mike Tyson.”
Going back to our earlier question: Should you provide CPR intervention to an elderly person who suddenly collapsed and seemed unable to breathe? Whether you give CPR or not, you are legally protected. But are you morally bound? It helps if the elderly person himself has made advance directives for such eventuality like a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) statement or a Physician’s Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST). Here you do what the elderly person asks. But what if there were no advance directive, like in Lorraine’s case? Currently, the default option is still to give CPR.
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