Cardiac arrest describes the sudden and complete loss of
blood output from the heart. The heart pumps out blood to the body each time it
beats (this is called stroke volume). The blood that goes out during each beat
moves to the lungs or to the body, depending on the part of the heart the blood
is coming from. If the heart stops beating, blood flow stops, organs lack
oxygen and nutrients (the brain is most vulnerable - it dies after about 3-4
minutes) and death ultimately occurs unless something is done early enough.
The commonest cause of cardiac arrest is coronary heart
disease. This disease is mainly due to damage to the blood vessels that supply
the heart.
You might be somewhere, and somebody goes into cardiac
arrest. The facilities to help revive the person may not be available and
before help comes, it may be too late. This prompted the development of what is
called Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation or CPR. Cardio- means ‘heart’, pulmonary
means ‘lungs’.
In cardiac arrest, what a person needs most is for blood that has
oxygen to keep going to the organs. The chest compressions mimics heart beat,
while blowing air into the airway mimics breathing. These two procedures might
be all that is required to save a life. But how do you compress? How do you
blow in air? These are practical things that are best observed and done than
read in books or on the internet. Joining a local Red Cross Society could
enable you acquire these life-saving skills. Nonetheless, I will try to describe
the procedure with images, to help you understand.
Steps.
When you are faced with a person in cardiac
arrest, confirm first by trying to get a response from the person, if there is
none, call for help from an emergency medical team. Then ask any nearby person to help you commence CPR. If you are alone, it can still be done, but 2 or more persons is better.
The first part is the chest compressions.
You should compress the chest deep enough (do
not kill the person please, especially for weight lifters).
At least 100 compressions in 1 minute is
required (do not waste your time looking at clock, just do mental calculation
and maintain the rhythm), remember the person has less than 4 minutes if you do
nothing.
If you have an assistant, exchange the chest
compressions at regular intervals so that one person will not get tired; this
tiredness will translate to decreased quality of chest compressions.
While this is going on, a second assistant
can check if the person is breathing; this is done by placing your face close
to the person’s face to feel for expired air.
If not breathing, tilt the person’s head
slightly backwards (careful in accident victims as you might just complete a
partial spinal cord injury).
Do not put your hands into the person’s mouth
to clear the airway; you might just block it further.
The air that you breathe out contains 16-17% oxygen (we breathe in 21%). This expired air is what you will use for this person.
Cover the persons nose tightly with two
fingers (so that the air you blow in does not come out from the nose), then
take a deep breath and blow hard into the person’s mouth (make sure your mouth
covers their mouth).
Observe the person’s chest rise and fall
(sign of air entry). Continue till help comes.
Remember, only trained medical personnel can
certify a person dead.
Some people confuse heart attack with cardiac
arrest. They are not the same. In heart attack, the heart muscle, part or all
dies from lack of blood supply; this is a diseased heart. Cardiac arrest can occur
in a healthy heart. The pulse is also absent in cardiac arrest.
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