Earlier this month, firefighters, paramedics, and citizens dubbed 鈥�everyday heroes鈥� were honored in Montgomery County for a year鈥檚 worth of heroic maneuvers: resulting in several lives saved in 2019.
In each case, it involved someone being in the right place at the right time, and knowing what to do, when someone else鈥檚 life absolutely depended on it.
Those lifesaving skills are skills first-responders hope everyone would know, though many don鈥檛.
鈥淲e call it the chain of survival,鈥� said the county’s emergency medical and integrated health care services battalion chief Alan Butsch. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 very important is timely recognition of the emergency as well as intervention by bystanders, as well as intervention by our providers.鈥�
He said if someone appears to be going into cardiac arrest nearby, the first thing you should do is send someone to call 911. And then, if you know how to do what鈥檚 called 鈥渉igh performance CPR,鈥� it鈥檚 time to get to work.
鈥淲e鈥檝e learned over time, that what鈥檚 really critical, is getting hands on the chest immediately, and doing about 110-115 compressions per minute, and not interrupting those compressions for anything,鈥� Butsch said.
He said too many people don鈥檛 know the proper way of doing CPR has changed over time, and even if they do, they don鈥檛 know how to do it.
The mouth-to-mouth aspect of CPR as you may have known it, for instance, is outdated, and it turns out, it’s not even all that effective either.
鈥淚t鈥檚 better to do hands-only CPR,鈥� Butsch said. 鈥淭he brain can survive just with the oxygen that鈥檚 being passively taken in with hands-only CPR. 鈥� But without that circulation going on, that creates a problem.鈥�
He鈥檚 urging everyone to take a CPR class to learn how to do it right, and won鈥檛 pretend it鈥檚 easy to do when it matters most.
鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty strenuous. If you鈥檙e pushing on somebody鈥檚 chest for 100 times a minute for two-minute cycles and you鈥檙e doing that for five-to-six minutes, that鈥檚 pretty strenuous,鈥� Butsch said.
Despite the intensity, Butsch closed with a plea for everyone to learn it, anyway, 鈥渂ecause it really is important.鈥�
