Wildcard:
Methinks you'll be seeing some significant changes to in-water resucitation protocols in the not-too-distant-future; no inside knowledge, just a hunch.
Watch for it.
DSD
Rescue Breathing on the surface
- Thread starter Knavey
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Methinks you'll be seeing some significant changes to in-water resucitation protocols in the not-too-distant-future; no inside knowledge, just a hunch.
Watch for it.
DSD
fisherdvm
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crosing:
In the water, checking the pulse is difficult. The assumption is that they do have a pulse. Therefore, if you don't provide rescue breath - you would GUARANTEE that they don't have a pulse by the time you can get them on a hard surface.
The assumption for drown victim is similar to that of an unconscious child - rescue breath with the hope of reviving them - so they would spontanously breath on their own.
Your argument would make sense, if you are sure the victim has no heart beat, or had a heart attack (where study noted that rescue breath actually DECREASED the effectiveness of resuscitation). But for a drown victim or a small child - rescue breath is still the way to go.
fisherdvm
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Wildcard:
Unless it is a very prompt in water rescue of a witnessed drowning, and the assumption is that they still have a heart beat. If you can get them to breath on their own promptly after the rescue, you might have saved them from being a mentally impaired invalid.
I would agree with your comment, only if it has been more than 3 minutes from the time of the witnessed drowning occurred. But if it is a witnessed drowning, and the victim is pulled immediately from the water..... I'd pray that the rescuer does not wait till they reach the boat before starting rescue breath....
One minute of lack of oxygen vs. 5 minutes?? I sure hope that you would start rescue breathing on me before my brain is irreversibly damaged.
That is a fine point in the rescue program that is hard to grasp: the timing of the trip to the boat or shore. As I understand, if you haven't revived them in 3 minutes of in water rescue breath, forget about it and drag them to shore immediately.
Sideband
Guest
JAMIE MCG:
For the same reason your lungs do not inflate if you purge the reg while in your mouth. The purge valve. If you were to block the purge valve there would be a serious risk of lung over-expansion.
This has been argued to death, no pun intended, before. It is hard if not near impossable for a profesional rescuer to provided a real patent airway and provided M2M on land, for a lay person, in the water it's almost pointless. IF! you are more than a few minutes from boat/land/safety AND you watched them go under, THEN it is worth trying once or twice. If the heart is still beating, then )2 is still circulating, granted at lower percentages but some non the less is still there....I have run well over 500 codes and prolly 40-50 of them have been drownings including one nightmarish week in Sacramento when I ran 4, 2 in one day. I know of which I speak.fisherdvm:
Kind of a strange twist on one of those. Woman walking into the river to kill herself, and she does, witnessed by Sacto PD. DART team pullerd her out after 30 minutes apnic and pulseless. Monitor shows asystole. My partner starts compressions. He got two done and I stoped him, she had regained NSR with a plapable pulse:11: She never resumed breathing on her own and was unpluged, brain dead the next day.
Your epiglotis closes preventing overpressure. Has nothing to do with an uncons person. It's easer to inflate the stomach than the lungs unless the airway is patent. THEN lung OP injuries could result. Basicly it wont work unless you know exactly what your doing. Demnad valves were pulled from most hospitals and ambulances many years ago due to too many user errors. DONT DO IT!Sideband:
northen diver
Contributor
crosing:
Uh Oh!........Someone had better tell the ALA (American Lifegaurding Association) and the USLA (United States Lifesaving Association), The ARC (American Red Cross), the YMCA's and the various agencies teaching rescue diving classes because ALL of these agencies are teaching this skill. I am no doctor, so I go with my training that I am taught. Is rescue breathing hard in the water while towing a victim? Sure it is. Get trained and practice it often and it'll get easier. Remember, only 14 percent of victims receiving CPR survives. Am I going to use this low percentage as a reason to not to do CPR.
Trwmodela
Contributor
A few Rescue breaths can only help a patient as it is hard to determine a heart beat in the water. But towing the diver to get them out of the water should take place at the same time. Do a few Rescue breaths then get moving towards the boat or land. If you have an AED on the boat or close by that is going to be very important. I do carry a rescue pocket mask in my BCD. Suggestiion do what you are taught in the class but keep asking good questions.
Glad you are taking the Rescue Course as I learned a lot.
Glad you are taking the Rescue Course as I learned a lot.
crosing
Contributor
northen diver:
You should read my post again. I said nothing about CPR. My point was that if the person's heart is not beating doing rescue breaths in the water is a waste of time as no oxygen would be circulating. You should get the person to shore as fast as possible where you can actually do CPR.
As people have pointed out it is quite difficult to determine if a person's heart is beating in the water so it is probably better to do some rescue breaths in the water.
The issue I have with doing rescue breaths in the water is: unless you are well trained on it and practice alot, it is difficult and time consuming process that may or may not have any beneficial effect. If you waste alot of time doing rescue breaths in the water and the heart is not beating you've wasted precious time that could have been used doing CPR on land or boat.
Also as someone else stated, the CPR guidelines have changed or are about to change to increase the compressions to reflect that it is more important to circulate the blood which delivers the oxygen to the brain and other organs.
shark_tamer:Haven't I read somewhere lately that the NEW procedure for reanimation is not 12 chest compressions and then 1 breath , but 20 compressions and then 1 breath because the most important is to have the blood circulated to the brain, not air in the lungs ?
*** Did not have to use the new technique yet, but it should be a work out for the responder !!
Single responder: 20 compressions to 1 breath
Multi responder: 5 compressions to 1 breath
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