CPR refresher always a good idea

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Within the last week I was immediately behind a middle-aged rider that crashed into an embankment in a mountain curve just out of sight in front of me. I was standing over him within 30 seconds and immediately saw that he wasn't breathing. I was honestly a bit stunned since he didn't have a scratch on him and I couldn't understand at the time what had happened. I asked a couple in an SUV that we had passed only moments before to call 911, which they did.
Luckily the wife of the couple had just taken CPR, I looked for a pulse (none) and she immediately started compressions. I took over quickly thereafter and she counted for me. Long story short, he eventually regained a heartbeat and eventually started breathing. Ambulance/life-flight was >30 minutes, area is remote but popular with Atlanta-area riders because of the high-speed curves.
Rider wasn't speeding as I was keeping pace with him at a modest clip, the road is wide, very curvy but multi-laned with light traffic in the crash area. Don't want to give too much detail out of respect for him and his family, as a few days later he succumbed to his injuries having never regained consciousness.
The point I'm making is that I only realized under duress that I hadn't had CPR training in several years. It's different now than it used to be. I'd recommend everyone take a course independently or possibly asking your employer to sponsor a class. We eventually had 6-7 people helping this rider, but only one had had recent CPR training.
 
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Jeff I have thought about a refresher course many times but have not. It is has been almost 25 years since I took a CPR class. I think in the heat of the moment I would do way more harm than good. Back in 1995 I came upon a car wreck at 11PM one night and found a young man that had hit the end of a concrete bridge and slide off almost out of sight from almost any other car. The 19 year old was coming home on a rainy night for the weekend from UT Knoxville. He had been there for more than 45 minutes before I found him. He was injured badly but was breathing. I am not sure how I would have handled CPR by myself. It also took the ambulance almost an hour to come. Because no one could figure out if it was the towns or the county jurisdiction because of where wreck it happen. Thank goodness for cell phones. Not everyone had a phone with them in 1995. The young man recovered but spent weeks in the hospital.
 

STumped

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The point I'm making is that I only realized under duress that I hadn't had CPR training in several years. It's different now than it used to be. I'd recommend everyone take a course independently
Excellent advice!
 
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Yep as an instructor this is very good advice. They teach a form of CPR where you don't need to go to the class but advise everyone to go as when the **** hits the fan you want the training to kick in as even after all the years of being in EMS (32) you still get stressed. At least do a search and there is some very good info on the AHA website on CPR!
So sorry to hear that rider did not make it.
 
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+1 to SmashVol Iam a career firefighter current working in the EMS Division. You can't replace quality training. If I had the money, I'd carry an aed with me. High Quality CPR can save lives.
 
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Jeff I have thought about a refresher course many times but have not. It is has been almost 25 years since I took a CPR class. I think in the heat of the moment I would do way more harm than good. Back in 1995 I came upon a car wreck at 11PM one night and found a young man that had hit the end of a concrete bridge and slide off almost out of sight from almost any other car. The 19 year old was coming home on a rainy night for the weekend from UT Knoxville. He had been there for more than 45 minutes before I found him. He was injured badly but was breathing. I am not sure how I would have handled CPR by myself. It also took the ambulance almost an hour to come. Because no one could figure out if it was the towns or the county jurisdiction because of where wreck it happen. Thank goodness for cell phones. Not everyone had a phone with them in 1995. The young man recovered but spent weeks in the hospital.
In the CPR course I took, we were told that many many people will freeze when confronted with an unconscious person, and forgetting some of what we are taught is normal. However, if the person's heart is not beating, his chances of survival are right around zero so ANYTHING you do is an improvement. And many states have good samaritan laws that relieve you of liability if you help.
 
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For the last 30 years, I have been taking CPR refresher courses every six months to a year. As stated, this is one training that everyone who has elderly family or young children should do!
Also as stated, the training has changed depending on who provides it. Some classes only teach compression's now without rescue breathing, because folks were getting confused and afraid to do anything.
IMHO doing only chest compression's is only keeping the blood moving to keep the donor parts fresh for the next person, whether it be on land or sea, I would recommend rescue breathing if you really want to try and save your loved ones.
.02
 

ReSTored

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I've done a few courses using an instrumented dummy patient and was very surprised at how hard the compressions have to be to be effective. Hope I never have to do this in a real life situation.
 

Mark

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As a nurse I have to re-certify every 2 years in both BLS (Basic Life Support) for Healthcare workers and ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life support).
I trained as an ACLS instructor; but, changed jobs and the new placed didn't need any more instructors. :(

They've changed the CPR recommendations again so if you haven't taken it in a long time you might want to sign up for a BLS class.
They teach how to use the automatic defibrillators that you see all over now too (hint, hint!).

Mark
 
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