ProCPR Blog

What we hear from our clients daily revolves around two key points:
1. Must I have staff trained every year? Time and money are in short supply.
2. May I have my staff certify every year? Two years between certifications is too long to retain proper skills.

Unless your state mandates annual training, there are some providers that may adjust the certification cycle between one or two years depending on your preference or requirement. Studies indicate that if CPR is not used or reviewed every 13 weeks (give or take), vital information and the confidence to respond to a crisis is greatly diminished.*

The point is even once a year is too long between certifications, thus frequent review of the material becomes more critical. ProTrainings.com is one provider that offers weekly video refreshers by email after certification to ensure better results and more confidence regardless of the certification timeline. Employers now have the best of both worlds, frequent review with a longer time between certifications.

A student from Harbor High School went into cardiac arrest during his physical education class on Wednesday morning.

The students were jogging when the incident happened.  It was shortly after they had begun when the student fell to the ground.  Fellow students called out for the teacher, Bassel Faltas, who ran about 100 yards to the scene.  He also called 911 from his cell phone on the way.  By the time he reached the boy, he was still breathing, but later stopped.  The teacher began CPR before the paramedics arrived.

The student was taken to Dominican Hospital, and flown from there to Sanford University Medical Center, where he remains hospitalized.

The school has offered counseling to the students to discuss any of their concerns.

Things like this really reinforce the importance of students learning CPR in high school.

-via

When I was at the dentist, I heard an amazing story that I somehow missed over the weekend about a rescue at a football game.  He was at the game between Michigan and Notre Dame when he suffered a heart attack during the second quarter, while at Michigan Stadium.  He was visiting Ann Arbor with his three sons, who are aged 45, 48 and 50.  My dentist knows of the sons.

Lee Staudacher, a 69-year-old from Bay City, Michigan, was enjoying the game when his heart suddenly stopped.  There was a dentist nearby that started CPR while others contacted emergency services.  The CPR was prompt, increasing his chances of survival greatly, and there was an on-site AED (Automated External Defibrillator) that was also put to use.

His family stayed nearby and watched while they shocked him with the paddles, and the prompt CPR was a key component in saving his life.  The medical team took him to the University of Michigan Health System’s Cardiovascular Center for treatment.  He didn’t miss the end of the game, as he was able to watch part of the fourth quarter while in an intensive care unit bed.

He’s a Notre Dame fan, but had a great time watching the game between these two old rivals, even though Michigan pulled off a 35-31 victory.  He wants to put the focus on the knowledge of CPR and the quick access of the AED that saved his life, however.

A group in Canada studied nearly 10,000 cardiac arrest patients.  They divided their rescue teams into two groups: those who would perform 30-60 seconds of initial CPR, and those who would perform three minutes of CPR.  The results showed that about six percent of patients in both groups lived to be discharged from the hospital.

Where the numbers were rather shocking is in the ten percent of patients who had also received bystander CPR and were candidates for defibrilation.  Longer CPR actually decreased the odds of survival.

The study, which was published in the September 1 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that there is no reason to do two minutes of CPR or to delay defibrillation.  It doesn’t change anything for bystander CPR, however, so the message to the public is still the same.  Bystanders should start CPR right away, this trial does not address how helpful CPR is when delivered by a bystander at the scene.

Getting to the defibrillator sooner is more helpful for cardiac arrest patients.

-via Healthday

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Pet CPR is becoming more popular these days.  Recently the life of a dog was saved by the simple knowledge of CPR.  The dog was drowning in floodwaters, and that is where the story starts.

A Kuranda woman jumped into floodwaters to rescue a drowning dog then gave it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to bring it back to life. Petra Lovey yesterday told how she jumped into the Barron River after seeing Jerzy the border collie-cross dive into the swollen waters and get swept under a bridge.

“The last thing I saw were her eyes looking at me as she was swept under the old wooden bridge,” Ms Lovey said. “The Barron River flows like a torrent so it didn’t take much for her to be sucked under the bridge.”

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Here are a few of the changes in CPR Guidelines for 2010.  This makes a few significant changes from the 2005 guidelines.  The focus with these changes is on good chest compressions.  Here are just a few of the differences between the 2005 and 2010 guidelines.

We’re going to be working on updating the videos on our websites as soon as possible, but while you wait, allow us to take you through some of the main points.

Firstly, there is a switch in the order of operations when you begin the CPR process.  Instead of starting with airway, then breathing and finally compressions, we’re going to start with compressions first.  This is based, in part, on the new Hands-Only CPR initiative of 2008.  After that you start on airway and breathing.  It’s a simple switch from A-B-C to C-A-B.

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Lightning strikes are a dangerous thing, and in the United States there are about 100 deaths per year.  That doesn’t seem like a lot, but every life is precious.  Anything that we can do to help save a life that might otherwise be lost is a good thing.

The first piece of lightning safety has to do with making sure you’re in a safe location when a storm comes in.  If you’re at an outdoor event, someone will likely have a safety plan, but you can also plan ahead by locating the nearest safe structures or locations.  Buildings that are normally occupied by or frequently used by people, that have plumbing and wiring to act as a ground.  You can also seek shelter in a car with a hard metal top and the windows all rolled up.  Not convertibles or golf carts.  And remember: do not touch the sides of the vehicle.

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A 911 recording released Tuesday shows how a dispatcher was able to talk a terrified mother through CPR before paramedics arrived to the near drowning.  This is a story that displays the importance of learning CPR.  It’s something that happens all too often, and learning CPR just takes a little while.

The critical information communicated could be what helped save a 16-month old boy’s life.

The toddler who fell into his family’s swimming pool on Cordova Club Drive after apparently pushing out a screen window is still at LeBonheur, but his condition is improving.

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Bystanders who start CPR on children before paramedics arrive can save lives and limit brain damage, regardless of whether they do the old-fashioned type of CPR with chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth or the newer “hands-only” CPR, a study from Japan confirms.

In the study of children who had suffered cardiac arrest outside a hospital, those who received any CPR were about three times more likely to survive than those who did not get CPR.

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People who received detailed audio instructions on how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) demonstrated better compression rate, hand placement and compression depth than those who did not receive recorded instructions by cell phone. The results of the study are published today online in Annals of Emergency Medicine (“Cell Telephone Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation: Audio Instructions When Needed by Lay Rescuers: A Randomized, Controlled Trial”).

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