Last night my wife was put in this position with a work collegue.
F
She found out today that the young girl was dead before she hit the ground, and nothing she did could bring her back. The girl was twenty and it was out of the blue. My wife is a bit teary but dealing with it well.

I’m proud she took control and done something, rather than stand about looking shocked.
I remember being taught to do cardiac compressions to nelly the elephant wich she remebered and said this helped. Two of them, my wife and another had todo 600 compressions each before the paramedics turned up. The 999 people were counting with them and guiding them.
600 that must be Bloody hard todo when under pressure and not very physical. Could any of us done this easly?

IM sorry for the family of this girl i dont know her name so i cant let you know, which i feel bad about.

Im realy proud of my wife and all the services for what they have to deal with on a daily bases.

Sounds like she did all she could, dead right to be proud, and will no doubt help her deal with it in that she knows did all she possibly could without the kit. Even then, ( done it through work ) not always garuanteed to work
It’s bloody exhausting but well done her actually trying, amazingly most people wouldn’t even bother/ be too stunned to try anything.
Statistically miniscual chance of out of hospital arrest surviving, but that shouldnt stop people trying.

your wife did all that could be done so well done to her for trying

young people who just drop dead are rarely saved unfortunately

on a lighter note….. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILxjxfB4zNk

She clearly did all she could and unfortuatnely that probably won’t make your wife feel any better. I think something like only 2% of people who are given CPR survive, the survival rate is minimal. Plus the training always changes, no longer give rescue breaths and the latest British Heart Foundation advert with Vinnie Jones now recommends doing it to “staying alive” which is way quicker than Nelly .. I’ve always been taught Nelly.

Difficult time for your wife though, good luck.

I was second on scene last year to a colleague at work, we worked on him for around 10-15 minutes. Several parmedics and an Air Ambulance Dr worked on him for a lot longer to no avail.

The worst experience of my life.

Also
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5hP4DIBCEE
this is one of my favourites

the latest British Heart Foundation advert with Vinnie Jones now recommends doing it to “staying alive” which is way quicker than Nelly .. I’ve always been taught Nelly.

compressions at a rate of 120 per minute is where its at

Out of hospital CPR has very very very poor outcomes. In hospital CPR is not much better, even with oxygen and defibs and medication.

Even doing it with a full resus team, using arterial blood pressure measurements as a guide to your effectiveness, I can do a minute of effective compressions before needing someone else to take over.

Anyone who does it is worthy of respect; it’s a dreadful situation to be in, so say well done to your wife.

24 years ago on my mother after a drunk driver hit our car head on. Ended up mouth to nose because her face had hit the steering wheel mashing her jaw together. I’d only just been shown first aid a few weeks earlier in basic training.

Yes and thankfully the cavalry arrived very very quickly. It was in a hospital.

Tell her not to be hard on herself, as has been said successful CPR for out of hospital arrests is rare and even in hospitals success rates remain lower than you would exspect.

A paper publish in Resuscitation Journal looking at CPR on intensive care units found CPR was performed in 98.2% of the patients within 30 s. Initial restoration of cardiac function (RCF) and successful CPR rate was 100% while 24 h survival was 9.2%.

Out of hospital CPR has very very very poor outcomes. In hospital CPR is not much better, even with oxygen and defibs and medication.

cpr don’t save people, defibs save people, cpr buys you time to defib

Many times at work, zero sucess rate.

We were told what Munqe-chick says above on our first aid course that in the vast majority of cases CPR will achieve nothing. If the ambulance crew turns up with a defib machine in a few minutes it might make a difference but that’s about the only way to get the heart going after a heart attack. They did say that CPR on people who had drowned could be more productive.

That said they did say to do it anyway, it makes a huge difference to the victims friends and family to know that someone tried and someone cared. So well done to your wife, her actions will have a made a big difference and she should also be proud of herself for making the difficult choice of doing something.

cpr don’t save people, defibs save people,

Cpr, in the kind of circumstances I use it; Intensive care, does save some people, and does keep oxygen circulating to your brain. Defibs are part of the process, but not the magic bullet.

Had a coupla successes, once when I thought there was no chance of getting a result.
Always admire folk who give it a go.

I had to give CPR at work when a customer had a heart attack in our managers office.
I did 600, then our other first aider did 600, then a paramedic arrived with a defib, and we had to do 600 more each before an ambulance arrived.
Unfortunately the person died in hospital after surgery later that night.
I knew at the time that his chances were slim but it still upsets you when they don’t make it.
The only consolation we had was that his wife was with him when he died.
Tell your wife you’re proud of her and she did everything she could.
It’ll help her even if she doesn’t show it straight away.

The wife is reading this and its making her feel better the support and the truths are a great help.

And STUMPYJON your words are magic my friend. Good Kama going your way.

Two summers ago I gave CPR to a guy on the London Bikeathon in Richmond Park. He collapsed at the top of the hill in front of me. I started CPR and was joined by some others quite quickly who I directed to stop traffic etc. After about 4 or 5 minutes a couple of doctors turned up and we took it in turns to carry on – I have no idea how many reps we did. About 8 minutes in a ambulance turned up and the police. We carried on until they were comfortable they had there kit set up and then they defibrillated him (4 or 5 times). They carted him off to Hospital after about 20 mins on the floor. I broke at least one rib (apparently ok to do).
After finishing the course (this was about 2/5 ths through, the most annoying thing is that the organisers didn’t know / seem to care that someone had nearly died on their course (the week after someone did die on the London to brighton).

Anyway – he survived – had several weeks (or months) in hospital. I have chatted to him briefly via text since then.

The one thing I learnt, was try. If you have had training (if you haven’t get it), it might seem frightening, but it may work – that 5% may make a difference to that person and there family.

Well done to OP wife – it hurts and is tiring but it is always worth trying.

I’ve seen the new recommendations to do CPR to Staying Alive (and ensuring hard pump), but what is the recommended number of pumps before giving a breath and how many breaths before starting to pump again?

It’s not an easy thing to do if you have only had basic first aid training and particularly when you know the person. As said above, lots of people aren’t able to do anything at all, which is also nothing to be ashamed of as people react in different ways.

So well done to your Wife and you have every reason to be proud of her.

Mr MC’s Dad gave CPR to someone who fell off his motorbike at a hill climb (he didn’t crash, he literally stopped at the top and fell ofF). He did reps with someone else, and he saved his life! It does happen but it’s very rare and most of the onus is on ambulance getting there in super quick time to use other bits of kit etc.

As already mentioned it’s about trying, and making the family of the deceased realise that someone tried their best. Hope she is feeling better having read that she did her best. x

I’ve seen the new recommendations to do CPR to Staying Alive (and ensuring hard pump), but what is the recommended number of pumps before giving a breath and how many breaths before starting to pump again?

The recommendations have changed, in part as a recognition of the ineffectiveness of most rescue breaths and to deal with the ick factor involved in mouth to mouth. The idea is to keep some blood circulating as this is more effective than attempting to stop and do rescue breaths.

30 compressions to 2 breaths if you are good/competent at it.

Essentially, just bang away at the compressions unless you are competent at mouth to mouth, and even then, the compressions should take precedence.

yep, had my first go at CPR this time last year.. never expected it would be on my 92 year old grandmother though.
She died on the floor in front of us, even though my dad is a community first responder and had a defib on her within 3 mins.
she had a blood clot in her heart and nothing was going to save her, even if she’d been ni hospital.
I feel good that we gave it a go, and lucky that circumstances meant we were all there rather than her being alone in her flat.

Tell you wife to hold her head up, she did a good thing, and the fact it didn’t work is not her fault… a lot fo people wouldn’t have the bottle to give it a try so well done to her.

Good on everyone who has a go; I do it as part of my job and I still think it is a hard thing to do after 25 years. Sometimes it works, but you’ll never know until you try.

In 2009, just outside Dalbeattie, my wife and I came across what looked like a car accident. Stopped our car, got out to see if we could help. Some bystanders crowded around; one explained that the driver “looked unwell” and that he’d phoned an ambulance. No-one had done anything else but watch.

In the drivers seat was a poor soul who looked like he’d been down for at least 5 minutes; no respones, not breathing, no radial or carotid pulse.

We dragged him from the car to get better access and started cpr; I’d used to carry an ambu mask in the car but hadn’t brought it, so missus did compressions while I did breaths (which was what you did back then.)

I wish there was a happy ending but we never got the poor guy back. I’m glad we did it though, for many reasons, he had a wife and family (as we found out) and I know it at least gave them a bit of comfort that someone had tried.

In actual fact, my brother died of a motorbike crash 19 years ago this year, and I’ve latterly wondered whether he might have survived had someone at least tried something with him rather than stand around like fannies, as they did.

She did good it’s not an easy thing to do for a member of the public and more so on someone they know and so young. For someone so young to collapse in cardiac arrest something big has taken them out.

It’s worth having ago the chances are small but it’s higher than not doing it. I’ve had very few truly successful ones and I’ve no idea how many of those survived after that. Pretty much all of them have been witnessed arrest and some have just been due to CPR.

I work in a rural area and until I our guidelines changed recently at times I’d have do it for an hour or more lost of that in a vehicle travelling at speed. Far from easy but we now have more sensible guidlines which help reduce that happening.

Yes.

And no.

With the very best of cicumstances, success rate I’m told is at best 20%

Tha answer to the OPs questions are “lots of times” and “occasionally”, but most of mine were/are in hospital and backed up by a full resus team, a few at the side of the road but again backed up by paramedics.

It is very hard work, there is a technique to it and hats off to the OPs Mrs for doing what she did. I agree with others that the fact you tried is important for you and the patient’s relatives and people can and do survive but only if someone knows what to do and is prepared to give it a go.

According to figures it is as low as 1 in 10 survive when CPR is used for a long period of time, then the problem is the after effects such as oxygen starvation to the brain..

Have had to deal with such an incident twice, one at work and one after 5 a side. Both heart related and both are with the big man!

The one at work was a foreign driver who had a heart attack worked on him in total for 20 mins initially then further 30 mins with paramedic. Was defibed twice then ambulance took him to hospital when he had started to show better signs..

He held out for a further 4 days until his family arrived, then passed away.

St John’s first aid served its purpose.

Tell your wife she done good and it’s normal to feel crap after such an incident..

I had to try, lady collapsed on a bus. Didn’t work 🙂

All the best to your wife

Yes a few years ago for 30 minutes until the ambulance arrived and another 10 afterwards.

Fella didn’t survive, I could hardly lift my arms the next day.

Worst feeling the day after, eventually a more realistic attitude takes over.

Had someone die in my arms* on a street in Cardiff a couple of years back. A lot of good people tried to do what they could, but as it turned out, there was no hope from the beginning.

It is tough.

*He fell as he was walking, and I got to him as he hit the ground. A number of others then rushed over and began to do the right things from a first-aid point of view.

I did a wilderness first aid course last year after a club member had a crash which stopped his breathing (blocked airway).

The trainer used to train resuss teams in A&E departments. His view was to not bother with breaths at all as most of the air goes into the stomach (the oesophagus is much larger than the trachea) and when you fill the stomach with air you tend to get the contents straight back. He also said that most of the time it’s done by close family members and it’s a very distressing memory of your last intimate “kiss”.

Fortunately I’ve never had to do it myself, but I have great respect for those who do.

I’ve never had to. I’ve had St Johns training, and would like to think I would know what to do, and be prepared. However, a few years ago my girlfriend had an incident in which she collapsed, and I was just completely floored and panicked. I couldn’t remember the first thing; in fact I only barely remembered to check for a pulse.

It was all fine in the end, but it was so shocking how everything suddenly went out the window – so, good on your wife for keeping her head and doing what she could.

Used to be a medic on a marine based SAR boat, so have done it a few times, never had any success with CPR alone, although ihad one success when combined with an AED.

Also helped out at Gatwick when an airport worker collapsed. Heard the tannoy announcement and was nearby so went to help. Ended up with me, and 2 ICU nurses doing compressions and getting an AED on which shocked the guy 3 times, paramedics turned up, got their machine on him and gave him some drugs, combination got him breathing again. Never knew what the outcome was.

OP’s wife did good and should be commended for it, as a crew we always had a debrief over a few beers, talked about the shout, what we did and what we could have done better, this was very therapeutic and good for our mental states, we also had conde lora available. No shame in seeking out someone to speak to if needed. It’s an incredibly traumatic experience that can sneek up on you when you least expect it, even if you have thought that you have coped well.

Only on Annie thankfully. I hope I can react as well as some of those ^^ up there if its ever required!!

Short Answer Yes, and No I couldn’t help!

Found a chap in his car in a hedge, chips on his lap still warm at about 7 one evening, tried to help but to no avail…

Inquest said he and his GF had had an argument that morning and he was on his way home to make up, I dunno which made me sadder me not being able to help or the fact he and his GF would never make up!

My wife is living proof that it can work. So much respect to yours for giving it a go.
The mrs has her own defib built in now, actually on her second.

One of my ‘friends’ turned up at another mates house one evening and said
‘I’ve just found a bloke drowned in the reservoir’.

‘What did you do?’, we asked.

‘Pinched his fags’ he said, unashamedly….