A co-worker once went into cardiac arrest and, thankfully, survived due to another co-worker performing CPR. I held the affected co-worker's head while the CPR was being performed.
Just being in a high stress environment doesn't avoid the basic problem of reverting to training in extremely urgent situations. And when said training doesn't exist most people don't perform very well. It goes both ways--my wife is not one that fares well under stress, but one day she dislocated her finger. To her own amazement she calmly put it back--because she knew how and it's something she had experience with doing for others.
Fire drills are about ensuring everyone knows what to do, they aren't done enough to make people revert to training when there's a fire.
My 45 year old gf went from saying she wants to skip work and go to the doctor, to passing out into a wall within 10 minutes. She went into full cardiac arrest and went into the wall so hard she broke the drywall with her head.
I called 911, ran outside to get the address while it rang, and after 30+ seconds answer I g questions and answering questions (which felt like 2+ minutes at the time), they had me start CPR. Never taken a class before.
Paramedics arrived 7 minutes later.
They used an automated chest compression machine, shocked her many times, and got some kind of signal.
Arrived to the ER still in code blue.
Turns out it was a SCAD event. 90% of women that have one die even if they get cpr.
Somehow my gf made it, and was released to home 3 days later after 2 days in the ICU. She had a stent installed within an hour of getting to the ER.
The fire department put together a reunion with the dispatcher, me, my gf, the firefighters that arrived first and did the whole thing, and the EMT team, because they say it’s not often someone survives full cardiac arrest outside a hospital.
This is the sign for you to go sign up for a CPR course.
It's pretty straight-forward to learn and it's worthwhile.
I'm not sure who this post is for. If you find the advice in the post helpful, then go take a BLS course. The AHA one is very good.
Just reading this post that is essentially suggesting to treat cardiac arrest with Trendelenburg position isn't going to do much even compared to the very low chances of a ROSC even with an AED and quality compressions.
To the extent the advice is to do anything other than go take a short BLS course this post seems almost irresponsible. I don't care who is suggesting it.
If you want to learn CPR, the Disque Foundation allows you to take the class for free and attests to be aligned with the current ILCOR protocol (you might catch minor discrepancies). Before you pay them though, know that for certification some institutions will require an AHA or ARC issued certificate.
For certification, you can do the AHA HeartCode class online in about an hour, followed by a 10 minute skills test on a Voice-Assisted Manikin. The manikin simulations guide you with incredible feedback on depth and rate, likely providing a better learning experience than an instructor-led class with the old style of dummies. They’re located across the country, often in an office space near your local hospital that you let yourself into with a combination code for a self-serve and fast experience.
I once killed a kitten and then brought it back from the dead with CPR.
It was a stray that showed up, was covered in fleas. I decided to bathe it and it didnt occur to me that cold/room temp water would not be good for it. It was fighting but I just assumed it didnt like the water. Then it just went limp.
Quickly googled CPR cat, saw something in the (pre-AI) preview thing about blow into its nostrils (the chest was quite surprisingly inflating like a balloon without much force), and just started doing that while poking/pinching its heart area. Some amount of time later - could have been 5 seconds or 45 - it sputtered back to life.
I found it a foster shortly after. I have significant allergies to cat hair, scratches etc...
Better yet take a first aid and CPR course every 2 years from now until they tell you that you are physically unable to do it anymore. It isn't fun, but it also only takes a few hours and if you ever need it you will want plenty of by standers around who jump in to help until emergency services arrive.
This information is outdated, wrong, and DANGEROUS.
Lifting the legs (aka shock position) has no effect and has been taken out of most first-aid guidelines for a reason.
The post also mentions "60 times a minute" when doing CPR. This is WAY to slow. Ideally you should push down 100-120 times a minute. If you do it 60 times a minutes you will not be able to generate enough blood pressure and the blood will not circulate - which is the goal of CPR.
The most important things you can do for someone during a cardiac arrest is:
- Call 911 / call for help
- Do CPR
- If there is an AED nearby - get someone to fetch it, turn it on and follow instructions
For the love of god, do not just stand there with the legs in the air.
A bit of googling shows it is widely discussed and was once in CPR guidelines (but isn't any more). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34034775/ is a recent randomized trial that found no improvement.
"Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." (Edit: ok, maybe I was overinterpreting your comment a little bit on this one.)
If instead of posting this you had taken the time to click on https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bookofjoe, you would already know that bookofjoe worked for 38 years as a neurosurgical anesthesiologist.
> I don't know if the author of this post had any medical credentials.
In his defense, this is written on his personal blog where (quite possibly) many readers already have some reason to trust his advice. And while I'm not sure what counts as appropriate credentials, on his linked HN bio (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bookofjoe) he claims to be a "Retired (38 years in practice) neurosurgical anesthesiologist". He also links to a lot of Google Scholar papers on medical topics for which he is a co-author.
(Oops, beaten by Dan, but I'll leave it up anyway. While I agree with Dan that you might have phrased it a bit better, I did think it was a fair question.)
On a whim, I did EMT-B training a few years ago. Part of that course is a responder-level CPR cert. Through muscle memory, one of my fellow students jumped on scene during the evaluation, and the first thing she did was instruct a bystander to "Call 911!"
That's what they taught us in Boy Scouts. Very first step is to get help.
Have someone call 911 (or whatever number in your country) immediately. If nobody is nearby start yelling.
Only one time in my life have I had to perform CPR (was already too late) but it is amazing how much of what I learned when I was 11 years old stuck with me.
Get help, check airway for obstructions...etc. Most importantly...take a CPR class sometime in your life and do what they say. The "ABC" of airway, breathing, circulation they taught us may not be current advice.
Sidenote: Don't be too hard on yourself if you don't save a life...even the pros say unless the patient is young/healthy you likely won't.
Edit: The feeling when the pros actually show up (in the case where I was doing CPR within minutes) is one of the biggest reliefs I have had in my life. Even knowing CPR...you feel helpless until they show up. And once they do, ask immediately if they need you. If not...get out of the way.
Some experts believe that some situations may see better outcomes if circulation is prioritized over respiration. Most experts agree that it is still best to teach ABC.
> The "ABC" of airway, breathing, circulation they taught us may not be current advice.
The version taught in Australian first aid classes is DRSABCD: check for (D)anger, check for patient (R)esponse, (S)end for help, (A)irway, (B)reathing, (C)irculation.
Part of the reason they teach "ABC" is it is simple and easy to remember, especially in an emergency. I've reread DRSABCD a dozen times now and I guarantee I will have forgotten it in a few minutes. And not to call you out, but even you missed (D)efibrillation...
I was taught "point at someone and tell them 'you, specifically, call 911'" but I like touch a lot better. Makes more sense for getting someone to actually do it.
Touching someone when asking them to do something is a well known psychological trick. It immediately increases intimacy, which makes the person more likely to do what you ask. Though it can also backfire if the person is particularly sensitive and finds the intimacy uncomfortable.
Discussion seems to agree it doesn't work. What works is calling 911 (or local emergency number), which gets help and instruction over the phone from experts in the latest. I've been doing CPR classes every few years for 30 years - a lot has changed over that time (but not once did I hear this for CPR - shock yes, but not heart problems), but they still teach CPR over the phone to surprisingly good results.
A co-worker once went into cardiac arrest and, thankfully, survived due to another co-worker performing CPR. I held the affected co-worker's head while the CPR was being performed.
I write more about the whole process here: https://x.com/alexpotato/status/2094412327785316661
Some key takeaways:
- I had taken CPR many times before
- I watched the entire even unfold from watching co-worker walk in to seizure like symptoms to not breathing to urinating on themselves
- I essentially "froze"
- This was despite having years of working in high stress environments (sports tournaments/SRE on a trading floor)
- I was literally overcome by events and could not process what was happening (despite the prior training and dealing with outages etc etc)
I HIGHLY recommend that everyone, at a minimum, watch a video on how to perform CPR. Even better, take a class.
And even if you take a class, practice on a couch cushion every once in a while.
It's just like with 911:
there are stories of people in an emergency dialing 411 b/c they were overwhelmed.
In other words, fire drills exist for a reason and the same concept can be used for CPR.
Just being in a high stress environment doesn't avoid the basic problem of reverting to training in extremely urgent situations. And when said training doesn't exist most people don't perform very well. It goes both ways--my wife is not one that fares well under stress, but one day she dislocated her finger. To her own amazement she calmly put it back--because she knew how and it's something she had experience with doing for others.
Fire drills are about ensuring everyone knows what to do, they aren't done enough to make people revert to training when there's a fire.
My 45 year old gf went from saying she wants to skip work and go to the doctor, to passing out into a wall within 10 minutes. She went into full cardiac arrest and went into the wall so hard she broke the drywall with her head.
I called 911, ran outside to get the address while it rang, and after 30+ seconds answer I g questions and answering questions (which felt like 2+ minutes at the time), they had me start CPR. Never taken a class before.
Paramedics arrived 7 minutes later.
They used an automated chest compression machine, shocked her many times, and got some kind of signal.
Arrived to the ER still in code blue.
Turns out it was a SCAD event. 90% of women that have one die even if they get cpr.
Somehow my gf made it, and was released to home 3 days later after 2 days in the ICU. She had a stent installed within an hour of getting to the ER.
The fire department put together a reunion with the dispatcher, me, my gf, the firefighters that arrived first and did the whole thing, and the EMT team, because they say it’s not often someone survives full cardiac arrest outside a hospital.
This is the sign for you to go sign up for a CPR course.
It's pretty straight-forward to learn and it's worthwhile.
I'm not sure who this post is for. If you find the advice in the post helpful, then go take a BLS course. The AHA one is very good.
Just reading this post that is essentially suggesting to treat cardiac arrest with Trendelenburg position isn't going to do much even compared to the very low chances of a ROSC even with an AED and quality compressions.
To the extent the advice is to do anything other than go take a short BLS course this post seems almost irresponsible. I don't care who is suggesting it.
If you want to learn CPR, the Disque Foundation allows you to take the class for free and attests to be aligned with the current ILCOR protocol (you might catch minor discrepancies). Before you pay them though, know that for certification some institutions will require an AHA or ARC issued certificate.
CPR: https://disquefoundation.org/cpr-first-aid-aed-certification...
BLS: https://disquefoundation.org/bls-certification-renewal/
For certification, you can do the AHA HeartCode class online in about an hour, followed by a 10 minute skills test on a Voice-Assisted Manikin. The manikin simulations guide you with incredible feedback on depth and rate, likely providing a better learning experience than an instructor-led class with the old style of dummies. They’re located across the country, often in an office space near your local hospital that you let yourself into with a combination code for a self-serve and fast experience.
I once killed a kitten and then brought it back from the dead with CPR.
It was a stray that showed up, was covered in fleas. I decided to bathe it and it didnt occur to me that cold/room temp water would not be good for it. It was fighting but I just assumed it didnt like the water. Then it just went limp.
Quickly googled CPR cat, saw something in the (pre-AI) preview thing about blow into its nostrils (the chest was quite surprisingly inflating like a balloon without much force), and just started doing that while poking/pinching its heart area. Some amount of time later - could have been 5 seconds or 45 - it sputtered back to life.
I found it a foster shortly after. I have significant allergies to cat hair, scratches etc...
Better yet take a first aid and CPR course every 2 years from now until they tell you that you are physically unable to do it anymore. It isn't fun, but it also only takes a few hours and if you ever need it you will want plenty of by standers around who jump in to help until emergency services arrive.
I learned how to CPR by watching The Office... staying alive
This information is outdated, wrong, and DANGEROUS.
Lifting the legs (aka shock position) has no effect and has been taken out of most first-aid guidelines for a reason.
The post also mentions "60 times a minute" when doing CPR. This is WAY to slow. Ideally you should push down 100-120 times a minute. If you do it 60 times a minutes you will not be able to generate enough blood pressure and the blood will not circulate - which is the goal of CPR.
The most important things you can do for someone during a cardiac arrest is: - Call 911 / call for help - Do CPR - If there is an AED nearby - get someone to fetch it, turn it on and follow instructions
For the love of god, do not just stand there with the legs in the air.
This, this. This is a correct take.
This should be taught more. I can imagine some uniformed people trying to interfere with raising the legs.
Can you imagine doing compressions and someone tries to raise the pt's legs?
Learned this a long time ago in the boyscout manual
Are there any studies about the efficacy of this technique. Or even, you know, a reputable source for it?
A bit of googling shows it is widely discussed and was once in CPR guidelines (but isn't any more). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34034775/ is a recent randomized trial that found no improvement.
Seems tricky to both give CPR and hold up their legs at the same time.
Yes, I can help.
Why am I holding their legs in the air?
Well I read it on hacker news once.
Hacker news, oh it collates techy/stem blog posts and articles.
I don't know if the author of this post had any medical credentials.
I can see why it doesn't look like they knew what they were writing about.
Can you please follow the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) when posting here, including these ones?
"Don't be snarky."
"Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." (Edit: ok, maybe I was overinterpreting your comment a little bit on this one.)
If instead of posting this you had taken the time to click on https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bookofjoe, you would already know that bookofjoe worked for 38 years as a neurosurgical anesthesiologist.
> I don't know if the author of this post had any medical credentials.
In his defense, this is written on his personal blog where (quite possibly) many readers already have some reason to trust his advice. And while I'm not sure what counts as appropriate credentials, on his linked HN bio (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bookofjoe) he claims to be a "Retired (38 years in practice) neurosurgical anesthesiologist". He also links to a lot of Google Scholar papers on medical topics for which he is a co-author.
(Oops, beaten by Dan, but I'll leave it up anyway. While I agree with Dan that you might have phrased it a bit better, I did think it was a fair question.)
Step 0: call 911 or whatever your country's equivalent is.
On a whim, I did EMT-B training a few years ago. Part of that course is a responder-level CPR cert. Through muscle memory, one of my fellow students jumped on scene during the evaluation, and the first thing she did was instruct a bystander to "Call 911!"
To which the evaluator responded, "You are 911"
That's what they taught us in Boy Scouts. Very first step is to get help.
Have someone call 911 (or whatever number in your country) immediately. If nobody is nearby start yelling.
Only one time in my life have I had to perform CPR (was already too late) but it is amazing how much of what I learned when I was 11 years old stuck with me.
Get help, check airway for obstructions...etc. Most importantly...take a CPR class sometime in your life and do what they say. The "ABC" of airway, breathing, circulation they taught us may not be current advice.
Sidenote: Don't be too hard on yourself if you don't save a life...even the pros say unless the patient is young/healthy you likely won't.
Edit: The feeling when the pros actually show up (in the case where I was doing CPR within minutes) is one of the biggest reliefs I have had in my life. Even knowing CPR...you feel helpless until they show up. And once they do, ask immediately if they need you. If not...get out of the way.
>The "ABC" of airway, breathing, circulation they taught us may not be current advice.
https://www.redcross.org/take-a-class/resources/articles/abc...
Some experts believe that some situations may see better outcomes if circulation is prioritized over respiration. Most experts agree that it is still best to teach ABC.
> The "ABC" of airway, breathing, circulation they taught us may not be current advice.
The version taught in Australian first aid classes is DRSABCD: check for (D)anger, check for patient (R)esponse, (S)end for help, (A)irway, (B)reathing, (C)irculation.
Part of the reason they teach "ABC" is it is simple and easy to remember, especially in an emergency. I've reread DRSABCD a dozen times now and I guarantee I will have forgotten it in a few minutes. And not to call you out, but even you missed (D)efibrillation...
Step -1: touch somebody and tell them to call 911.
I was taught "point at someone and tell them 'you, specifically, call 911'" but I like touch a lot better. Makes more sense for getting someone to actually do it.
Touching someone when asking them to do something is a well known psychological trick. It immediately increases intimacy, which makes the person more likely to do what you ask. Though it can also backfire if the person is particularly sensitive and finds the intimacy uncomfortable.
I had this directive as well.
I was told to point at someone and say, "YOU. Call 911."
I wonder how small or quantized would a llm have to be to hallucinate such a stupid thing
Didn't read but bookmarked for later in case something happens and I need it.
It's absurdly short, recommend reading. However, I have no idea if it's correct.
Discussion seems to agree it doesn't work. What works is calling 911 (or local emergency number), which gets help and instruction over the phone from experts in the latest. I've been doing CPR classes every few years for 30 years - a lot has changed over that time (but not once did I hear this for CPR - shock yes, but not heart problems), but they still teach CPR over the phone to surprisingly good results.
Yeah I doubt you would look like someone who could be trusted with saving a life if you did this in an emergency scenario
Lay them down and hold their legs up.
Lol