In this episode I’m going to do my best to explain the very complicated issue surrounding Do Not Resuscitate orders(DNR) when CPR is already in progress or about to begin.

Sample of Proposed DNR Guidelines From BENO-Ethics

Concussion

Warning!  Video contains graphic pictures of injuries and accidents.

Video Gallery of Actual Bike Accidents

“It’s so hot where we live and it seems that we have elderly people who suffer most when it gets hot and humid.  Is there anything I can do to stay cool myself and maybe even help someone who is having a heat related health problem?”

Signed,

Melting in Florida

Dear Melting,

Benjamin Franklin once said “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This saying applies to many different health care related scenarios, heat related emergencies certainly not the least of them.

When staying safe and healthy in hot and humid weather it is important to understand what types of environments will put one at risk.

To get started, let’s take a look at how a heat index works.

A heat index combines air temperature with relative humidity as a way of determining how hot a person feels.  A person feels hotter in more humid climates because the moisture in the air does not allow one’s perspiration to carry the heat generated by the body away and evaporate as easily.  When the body cannot cool itself by perspiration and evaporation, the body’s temperature rises and one may feel less comfortable or may even lead to more serious heat related problem.

An example of what could take place in certain heat indexes are as follows:

1. 80–90 °F  Caution — fatigue is possible with prolonged exposure and activity. Prolonged activity could result in heat cramps.
2. 90-105 °F  Extreme Caution — heat cramps, and heat exhaustion are possible.  Prolonged exposure and activity could result in heat stroke.
3. 105-130 °F  Danger — heat cramps, and heat exhaustion are likely; heat stroke is probable with continued activity.
4. Over 130 °F Extreme danger — heat stroke is imminent.                                                                                                                                                                                               (Please note that these are shade values.  Exposure to direct full sunshine could increase these heat values by more than 10 degrees.) Closely paraphrased from the public domain article Heat Index on the website of the Pueblo, CO United States National Weather Service.

Most individuals can indeed acclimatize to heat which will help the body tolerate hotter conditions with less stress to the body.  This process for normal healthy individuals usually takes about 5 -7 days.  This should be done gradually and with a person maintaining good hydration.  A person is capable of sweating up to 2-3 gallons of water per day in hot conditions and cannot rely on the thirst drive in order to know when to drink.  During heavy sweating, a person should be drinking approximately 5-7 ounces every 15 minutes 20-30 ounces per hour in order to replenish lost fluids.  Valuable electrolytes such as sodium, calcium and potassium may be lost during heavy perspiration and should be replaced with proper nutrition and diet. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/hotenvt.html

Those who are most vulnerable to these heat indexes include:

• infants,
• the elderly (often with associated heart diseases, lung diseases, kidney diseases, or who are taking medications that make them vulnerable to heat strokes),
• athletes, and
• outdoor workers physically exerting themselves under the sun.

or

Those who do not have means for escaping the heat.  Some examples of how to escape the heat include:

1. Circulation of air by fan or ventilation,
2. Accessing lakes, ponds or pools
3. Air conditioning or subterranean cooling like a vegetable cellar or cool basement.
4. In certain cases, placing ice bags under arm pits or around the neck or over other arteries like the wrists, ankles, top of head which may help in cooling core body temperatures.
5. Cool or tepid bath water or a cool shower

If an individual does not have means of cooling and succumbs to the heat they may be suffering from heat fatigue, heat exhaustion or heat stroke.  Let’s take a look at each of these and how to treat each problem.

Definition Heat Fatigue: The signs and symptoms of heat fatigue may include heavy sweating, muscle weakness, tiredness, and impaired performance of skilled sensorimotor jobs.

Treatment:  Remove from heat, encourage water intake and good healthy nutrition and allow person to rest.  Allow person to acclimatize longer to increased heat environment.

Definition Heat Exhaustion: The signs and symptoms of heat exhaustion may include all of the above with the addition of heat cramps in legs, abdomen, back, calves and arms, headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, confusion and lethargy.

Treatment:  Remove from heat, encourage fluid intake, loosen clothing, poor water over persons body to soak clothing and begin cooling persons body. Monitor person for unresponsiveness, difficulty breathing or cardiac arrest.  If person is not improving with treatment or symptoms worsen, activate EMS or 911.  Heat exhaustion can become heat stroke if body temperature is not reduced.

Definition of Heat Stroke:   All of the above for heat exhaustion but usually progress to the following:

• high body temperature
• the absence of sweating, with hot red or flushed dry skin
• rapid pulse
• difficulty breathing
• strange behavior
• hallucinations
• confusion
• agitation
• disorientation
• seizure
• coma

Treatment: Remove person from source of heat, loosen clothing, begin cooling the person’s body safely as soon as possible in order to lower body temperature.  Nothing should be given by mouth once the person cannot drink safely on their own.  Activate EMS/911 and support with CPR and First Aid for life saving measures. http://www.medicinenet.com/heat_stroke/article.htm

So, next time you’re planning a trip out into hot conditions, take a moment to check the heat index and formulate a plan for protecting, preventing and treating yourself and others who might fall to heat related emergencies.  Oh, and if you know someone who may be vulnerable to hot weather, see if you have an extra fan, or maybe even give them some tips on how to cool down right in their own home.  You could just find that you have some rescue hero in you too.

It read…

“Since most of the first aid measures for a no pulse, no breathing situation is immediate CPR, is it alright to do CPR if the victim has a wound on the chest that is bleeding profusely? This is not that I have seen this situation, but I like to think that if it happens I would know what to do!”
C. H.

That’s a great question C.   Sometimes it’s easy to get distracted by a serious traumatic injury and forget the basics and what needs to be done first in order to try and save the person’s life.  Or, we can look at a complicating injury such as a chest wound and think,  How am I going to do CPR on this person, there chest has a serious bleeding wound right where I’m going to give my compressions?

In this episode of RoyOnRescue we are going to look a proper treatment plan if we ever came across a person who had a serious chest injury and needed CPR.

In some parts of the country it doesn’t feel very hot but don’t be fooled…Summer is just around the corner.  Be ready and don’t allow you or someone you love to become a victim of Heat Stroke!

Student’s Email Question:

(Paraphrased to protect students identity)

Dear Student,
One of the most important things to remember when providing CPR to anyone let alone a loved one, is that people who need CPR are already in a state of death.    When the person is not breathing and they don’t have a pulse strong enough to detect  with obvious signs of life, they are clinically dead.  From the point of clinical death, they are only a short distance from biological death, which is permanent.

One way of looking at the success of CPR, regardless of the outcome, helps me and I believe helps my students to be much more at peace with themselves.  The fact that your cousin’s Dad did not survive cardiac arrest has very little to do with the CPR given to him.  It’s important to remember that CPR, in and of itself does not save anyone’s life directly.  CPR is designed to “Buy Time”.  CPR only provides about 25% of the oxygen circulation that is required for someone to stay alive biologically.  CPR was never designed to be life support viewed as a way to keep people alive indefinitely, but rather to slow down the process of clinical death to biological death.  This is to provide a chance to intercept the patient with electrical therapy, advanced therapy and medications combined with CPR and time to fix the underlying problem which caused the person to die in the first place.

In my opinion what your cousin did, is give his Dad the best chance of survival possible if he was indeed going to survive.  Let’s look at clinical death as a heavy iron gate that is slowly dropping to the ground, and once closed the person is biologically or permanently dead.  CPR is like arms holding the heavy gate of possible survival open a bit longer.  Again, not stopping the progression of clinical death to biological death, but slowing it down so that if there is a chance of survival, they would have the greatest opportunity of slipping back through the gate available.  Eventually, the gate is going to close even if CPR is perfect.  As I said earlier, CPR in and of  itself is not enough to keep the human body alive.  But if the person is going to survive and the person needs more time, CPR buys the precious time required to make this a reality.

Now, it’s  important to remember a simple but powerful truth.  Everyone dies.  I have had patients that had everything go right in order for them to survive a cardiac arrest and they still remained dead despite our rescue efforts.   That day was their day to die and nothing that the cpr providers, paramedics, nurses or doctors did changed the outcome.  The CPR helped keep them viable long enough for the rescue and medical team to try and fix the underlying problem but the person remained dead.  I had to realize that as a professional rescuer and paramedic, everyone has a day to die.   It’s not my job to save everyone but it is my job to give everyone the best chance of  survival possible.  When I provided care to cardiac arrest patients, I provided care to them as if they were suppose to survive and didn’t give up hope unless they proved to me otherwise by not surviving.  It may be frustrating but we  just cannot know what day is the day a person is going to live or die until the outcome is evident.

I’m quite sure that no matter what I say, your cousin is really missing his Dad.  I don’t think there is any amount of explanation of science, death, dying and CPR that’s going to change that.   One thing I do know about what your cousin did the day he provided CPR for his Dad though, he showed others and his Dad how much he loved him.  How much he really cared.  Your cousin gave his Dad his own strength when his Dad didn’t have any of his own.  In my opionion, that’s one of the most loving and unselfish ways to tell a daddy goodbye.

May God bless your cousin and all hurting friends and family during these difficult times.

Sincerely,

Roy Shaw, ProCPR, LLC
RoyOnRescue.com

Tale-Yax walks toward them. What can’t be seen is him being stabbed several times in the torso while trying to save the woman.

Within seconds, the camera captures the apparent attacker running away. Authorities say the woman fled from her assailant.

Tale-Yax, who was homeless, starts to chase the attacker but then collapses.

A minute later, a potential good Samaritan walks right by. And so does the next person and the one after that. A procession of more than 20 people seem to notice and fail to help.”

ABC Video and News Story of Stabbing Victim Ignored

Source: abcnews online

In this Roy On Rescue Video Blog, Roy W. Shaw, EMT-Paramedic explores a most disturbing news story about a man who comes to the aid of a woman being mugged, gets stabbed himself and then is left on the sidewalk to die.   The most disturbing part of the whole story is that approximately 20 people walked, drove or rode their bicycle by the dieing man without doing anything to help.

Roy get’s a bit serious in this episode but wants to make sure that if there is a reasonable doubt about getting involved to save another’s life and one is being stopped because of a misconceived fear, that fear must be removed before another person needlessly dies.

Don’t let one of these fears stop you from rescuing:

1.  Lawsuit

2.  Catching a Disease

3.  Unsure of What To Do

4.  Might Hurt or Kill The Person by doing something wrong

5.  Dangerous Environment (Legitimate)

Roy dissolves the misconceptions and misunderstandings of these top fears and hopes that if you know someone that may not rescue due to being afraid to try, you will pass this story on to them!

If you’re reading this or watching video right now, you are probably one of the ten percent of the total population that this story doesn’t apply to.  That’s why we know we are probably “preaching to the choir” but Roy is sure that you probably know someone that wouldn’t get involved in a rescue.  Please pass this on to them.