Quote:
Originally Posted by Amorok
Alright, I can see how this works but my problem is that they said you don't check for a pulse or clear the airway. If you have a pulse you don't need chest compression, you need oxygen. And for me to get oxygen to you, chest compressions or not, you need a clear airway.
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This has been the CPR standard for a few years, the thinking behind it is that your blood has 20-30 minutes worth of oxygen in your blood supply without needing to breath. Proponents of this method contend that you someone who is having a heart attack should be under the care of trained paramedics within the first 10 minutes, and they can clear the airway and put you on a high O2 mix without much delay.
The creators of this method also hope to stop people from deciding if someone is alive (and thus worth starting CPR) or not by just automatically starting chest compression. An estimated 10% of people who have a heart attack that can be saved by CPR are declared dead on the scene by people who are not trained to declare someone dead. Basically innocent bystanders kill 10% of savable heart attack victims.
Another 20% of people are killed because potential lifesavers don't want to lock lips with a disgusting looking or smelling individual, so they let someone die because their personal hygienic or appearance are less than perfect. Removing the possibility of bodily fluid transfer increases the amount of people who are willing to attempt CPR immensely.
Moral of the story: a shit load of people die needlessly because other folks are too stupid or vein to help, and this is designed to increase the number of people who survive a heart attack by increasing the number of attempts at CPR, while sacrificing a much smaller number of people who become brain damaged because of oxygen starvation to the brain.