ProCPR Blog

In this entry in the CPR in Entertainment series, we’re going to talk about a show that I’ve never seen.  This CPR scene was recommended by Rex.  In the episode, which closes out the first season of the show, a lot of things happen which lead to the quick invention of CPR, hundreds of years before it was actually invented. In fact, it is Xena herself who invents CPR in her desperation to revive the dead Gabrielle.

CPR in Entertainment is a series based on rescue scenes found in both TV shows and movies. If you have a suggestion for a future entry, please comment below!

24 was a television show that went for eight seasons over nine years (one year was missed due to the writer’s strike, if I’m not mistaken).  It was an action packed show that dealt with a single day in the life of Jack Bauer, as each season only happened over one 24 hour time frame.  The entire series tackled only eight days, but each day was potentially years apart.

As this show dealt with a lot of hard hitting action, there was always a chance that CPR might come up at one time or another.  Did they manage to correctly display CPR for the world to see?  Well, there were a lot of episodes that featured CPR, but the one scene that I’m going to talk about this time is from season seven, episode ten.

In the scene, FBI Agent Renee Walker (played by Annie Wersching) attempts CPR on someone who they just pulled out of a truck before it exploded.  Her arms are bent, not locked, and the compressions are shallow, not deep.  Nor do the compressions come anywhere close to the 100 per minute rate that is supposed to be done.

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Back in season five of NBC’s The Office, they did an episode that featured a CPR class which was absolutely hilarious.  The opening of the episode also showed the importance of having a fire escape plan that your employees know about, and that you’ve practiced it.  I know that this isn’t a scene with CPR, but we covered it before, here: CPR on The Office (after the Super Bowl).

I hope that you enjoy this cautionary tale on having a plan of escape in case of a fire emergency.

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Lost is one of the most popular tv series of all time, so you might have seen this classic moment in the show that is a dichotomy of emotional baggage and rescue as Jack makes an attempt to rescue Charlie.  Jack also has a big problem with being able to let go, making this scene both emotional and powerful.

When Jack and Kate find Charlie hanging in the jungle, they cut him down and Jack goes to work checking for a pulse and listening for breathing.  When he doesn’t find either, he gives two rescue breaths and proceeds to compressions.  And when continuous compressions and rescue breaths don’t appear to be working, Jack gets frustrated and doesn’t give up.  He balls up his fist and begins really pounding Charlie’s chest.

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We’re going to start a series of entries on CPR as it happens in movies and television shows.  It happens pretty regularly, and not always correctly.  In fact, it happens incorrectly more often than not.

We’re going to look at one scene per movie or television series for each entry.  We’ll be looking at classic scenes from films like The Sandlot and television series such as Lost and Scrubs.  If you have suggestions as to other movies and TV shows to look at for an entry, do let us know!

Let’s have fun with this series.  We’ll try to get clips whenever it is possible, but if not, then we’ll grab some screen captures from the scenes.

A girl remembered a lesson that she learned from an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants and rescued her friend, who had begun choking on her gum. This is yet another case of video training pulling through, even though it was not intended to be a training video for the heimlich maneuver.  In fact, Nickelodeon cannot find an episode during which the Heimlich maneuver is performed.  Here’s the story.

Miriam, a Long Beach Middle School seventh-grader, and her “BFF,” Allyson Golden, had just finished rehearsing the “West Side Story” classic, “I Feel Pretty,” for an upcoming choral competition when their teacher cracked a joke that had the 12-year-olds erupting in laughter.

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Last September, we asked you what your favorite medical tv shows are.  By far, the number one voted show is House, as of this writing.   Those of you that love House will probably be pleased to learn that there will be a new video game based on the show.  Read on!

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Mayor Richard M. Daley today thanked the producers, crew and cast members of the NBC drama “ER”, from Warner Bros. Television, for their contributions to Chicago.

Currently in its fifteenth and final season, “ER”, the longest running production ever to film in Chicago will complete its final shoot in the city this weekend.

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This week’s episodes of Scrubs had a few problematic areas, but were overall pretty good ones.  The problems lay in the humor of the second episode especially being overly crass at times.  The inappropriate comedy isn’t my cup of tea, though the episodes did provide some good clean humor as well as interesting storylines to help offset it.
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This week’s episodes were terrific, but curiously absent from the cast was Dr. Chris Turk.  I know that this year is definitely a year of change for the show, as they make their way toward the season finale, and perhaps the passing of the torch to a team of new Doctors for a possible ninth season (fingers crossed).  Anyway, let’s get to brass tacks.

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