CPR: You can do it!
You’re checking your mail and see your neighbor get out of his car. You wave “hello” and suddenly he falls to the ground. What do you do?
This is not a scenario we are faced with everyday. In scary situations, our minds tend to freeze up and we have a hard time processing what to do first. Here are a few tips to help you quickly access a situation such as this and provide proper assistance.
What should I do first?
Before you do anything, check the scene and make sure it is safe to approach the person. You don’t want to find yourself in a situation where you could be hurt as well. Tap the person on the shoulder and loudly ask them if they are OK. Check to see if they are steadily breathing.
If there is no response from the victim or if they are in distress, immediately call 911 for help or ask a bystander to call for you. If the person isn’t responding and there is no obvious breathing, you can begin performing hands-only CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).
How do you do CPR?
You don’t have to be a medical professional to perform hands-only CPR. This simple technique can increase the likelihood of a person surviving a breathing or cardiac emergency and it’s easy to do..
Kneel beside the person and place the heel of one hand in the center of the victim’s chest. Place your other hand over this hand and lace your fingers together.
Lean over the person so that your shoulders are directly over your hands. Keeping your arms straight, push hard and fast. You want your compressions to press into the chest about 2 inches and you want to do this at least a 100 times a minute. To make timing easy on yourself, you can do the compressions to the beat of the Bee Gee’s song Stayin’ Alive. If you aren’t familiar with that song, there are a few other songs with a similar beat listed below.
Keep pushing until you see obvious signs of life or until another trained person such as a nurse or emergency responder arrives to take over for you.
Try not to panic and always remember that 911 can walk you through this process if you get flustered. Your assistance and quick actions could save a life.
Songs to do CPR to
When performing CPR you want to do about 100-120 compressions per minute. That comes out to about 1-2 compressions a second which is pretty fast and very necessary. To keep pace, perform the compressions to the beat of one of these songs:
- I Will Survive – Gloria Gaynor
- Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd
- Girls Just Wanna Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper
- 9 to 5 – Dolly Parton
- Work It – Missy Elliott
- Crazy – Gnarls Barkley
- Man In the Mirror – Michael Jackson
- Another Brick in the Wall – Pink Floyd
- Baby Shark – Pinkfong
