A question on CPR

[Zep 0]

Driving home this afternoon I nearly had an accident with a motorcycle, on a bendy country road the girl cyclist
took a blind bend to fast an invaded my side of the road, we managed to avoid each other by a hairs breath.
The rest of the drive home I was thinking an trying to remember basic CPR ( thats how close it was )
Pleased to say I remembered just about all of it, Then I started thinking, She was wearing a fullface helmet,
I know I must not remove a helmet, but supposing I need to give mouth to mouth, Which takes priority?
I'd hate to end up killing someone through ignorance.

Gone fishing

[Remster 30]

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Which takes priority?

ABC

Airway, Breathing, Circulation.

Remster

[davedlg 0]

If the person is not breathing, then you would probably need to *very carefully* remove the helmet. Breathing takes priority over preventing a neck injury. If you happen to have a CPR mask that can get through the open face, then you could try doing that first. Remember, if you are doing CPR on someone, they are already dead and you have only a small chance of "bringing them back" as it is. The prevention of a neck injury, while important is not paramount in this situation.

[ebusto 0]

I recently took an EMT class, and was told precisely this, with regards to removing a helmet.

Remember, when performing CPR, your job isn't to bring the person back to life, but to merely keep oxygenated blood flowing until the medics arrive.

For the sake of anyone else reading this thread, don't forget that the brain can only survive for 3 minutes or so without oxygen, so don't fuck around. Start CPR ASAP.

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[freeflir29 0]

The truth.................if someone needs CPR it is HIGHLY unlikely they will recover. I've only had two experiences with "dead" people recieving CPR and it's 50/50 so far. However, one was old and had a heart attack and the other was young and had his heart stopped by high voltage after a bad skydive. Sort of apples and oranges. The medics tell me it's pretty unlikely though. These are people with YEARS of experience. This is all you need to know.........If you are pumping the chest to provide circulation and giving a breath to provide oxygen the rythm or numbers don't matter so much as the fact that you are doing something. The "official numbers" such as 15 compressions and 2 breaths or whatever else they teach have changed regularly over the past few years. I have been "current" on CPR since 1991 and it changes damn near every time I take it. Just remember ABC and you'll be doing all that you can without a proper med kit.