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Darnold9999:Not being critical here at all, but does "basicly hosed" mean give up, I seem to recall you are an ER Dr. so I mean this as a serious question? i.e. where is the trade off between a longish swim towing and trying to do some kind of in water CPR/rescue breathing? Do you stop every little bit and try again or give up the attempt at breathing and just swim as fast as possible to shore/boat. Not clear where the line might be, I think it might be helpful for you to share your thoughts.
Not to put you on the spot.and I will understand if you don't want to respond in detail - liability issues and such.
I suppose this would depend on one's swimming ability and their resuscitation skill set.
Far too often I have seen ineffective ventilations being carried out in the best of circumstances... under the bright lights in an ER suite. Toss that victim and rescuer in the water and do you think that the chances of that effort will improve? Not likely.
I think a skilled swimmer and an experienced resuscitator has a good shot at providing effective ventilations while towing a victim at a pretty good pace. But at some point you gotta just get the victim to a better environment... the quicker the better. So much of the decision making would involve looking at the big picture and how much of that picture can be seen depends on one's training and experience. I'm sure that the way Lynne, Catherine, DivinCRNA, or I would evaluate a situation would be much different than an 18 year old DM.
I would hate to see the removal of a victim from the water delayed by a rescuer delivering nothing but ineffective ventilations.