Let's start with some numbers:
The current total population in Holland around 17 million people. In total around 1.5 million people in Holland are suffering from cardio vascular disease. Every day around 640 people enter the hospital after suffering from a heart attack according to the Dutch heart foundatition. These people reach hospitals with chest pains gasping for air, but also they just collapse to the floor without any warning sign.
That person could be you, your family, your neighbor, your gymteacher or your busdriver. Not alsways the pre symptoms from a heart attack are that clear.
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I work in the medical field and actually I do a lot in cardiac care. This means that even in a hospital setting with trained professionals we end up in a CPR (cardio pulmonary resuscitation) setting every now and then, and also sometimes these settings end up with not having a succesfull end result.
And also even with all this training and experience this is always an expressive thing, because a lot has to be done in a very short time. Later on we always evaluate on our handling of the situation but also if everyone is mentally okay afterwards. This is how good care should be done.
But back to the home situation
This is all super sweet, but the real thing with people having heart attacks is that they don't happen in general in the hospital. They happen at home, in the gym, in the car, in places where you don't expect them.
That is why ambulance drivers find people on the toilet, or next to their dishwasher. They were doing something normal and then they had their heart attack. Good luck to the people around them dealing with that. Because it isn't fun performing CPR and most of all a lot of steps which are weird and you are unfamiliar with.
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Now what I don't understand is why we don't take a bit from the unfamiliarness and start teaching this a bit more in schools and companies. In Holland every company needs a BHV employee. BHV means something like 'company medical helper' who is responsible for when a medical issue occurs or when there is a fire in the building. Super good and this means you always have a medically trained person there.
But why not let everyone do a bit of having the basics of CPR. After all, the whole deal with CPR in the streets is that it is always better to to something regardless what it is than doing nothing at all. in my words this would be: no matter how sucky you give chestcompressions and if you do this 1 time per minute or the mandatory 30 times per minute, it is still better to do something than nothing at all.
The current situation
So currently when someones dials 911 (that is 112 in Holland) and tells that someone has no pulse that is when the CPR should start as soon as possible. Every second that someone is not getting CPR, there is no blood circulating and that means that heart tissue is dying.
In the system here it means that after the call, 2 ambulances are then being sent, and first responders from the neighborhood are being activated. That is a great thing, because these guys are always faster than an ambulance because they live in the street or at least closeby. But still...until those guys or the ambulance is there....It means you have to do something.
And doing something is a lot easier when you know what to do or at least have practised it once even if it is in the far, far distance.
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I really don't understand why something like this isn't touched base upon in schools. The place where everyone has their basis and it only needs 1-2 hours from your time. A trainer who learns you something serious but in a fun way, and a chance to practise on a doll with the most important thing and that is how deep you give your chest compressions. Because you always have to press deeper than you initially think.
Maybe this will end up being my life mission eventually. Teaching CPR in school. In the end it will save lives. Here is a little video as a reminder. And no the chest compressions in the video are not depe enough because this is fake, Dig deeper!