I was just cleaning out my junk drawer and found my mouth shield in there🤦🏼‍♀️ A lotta good that would do me if I ever needed it and not only didn’t have it, but had no idea where it was.

But really in all my years of being certified & re-certified, I’ve NEVER encountered anyone in need of rescue.

If we all carried around everything we could possibly need at every given moment for any possible unforeseen need, we’d all be hauling 20 ft long trailers 😆

I’m a minimalist and everywhere I go I bring as little as possible. Sometimes I bring nothing at all with me places I go. I really prefer to travel lightly.

  • philpo@feddit.org
    2·
    13 hours ago

    Hey mate, Critical care paramedic for almost a quarter of a century here.

    You did fucking great. Seriously, tipping my head here.

    Why?

    • You started CPR despite being in a huge crowd. That alone takes some braveness - trias on nurses (!) showed that they had issues with it.

    • You seemed to done a stellar job despite having alcohol as your situational awareness was still there. Great job.

    • You continued despite interference. (That is the number 1 reasons my trainees fail their exams - and the drunk know it better is a very common scenario)

    • You did mouth to nose/mouth to a unknown person post drowning. Honestly? I wouldn’t. You did. Mad respect.

    The fact that it didn’t work out and he died is none of your fault. Even with bystander CPR being present an extremely low percentage of people survive, even less without permanent damage. One reason one must not forget is the fact that it takes a lot for a heart to stop. A fuckton. We have a multitude of redundancies build in. Sinus node is fucked? Take the AV. Etc. So the chances that there was an issue that was uncorrectable is extremely high. And water,well,makes everything twice as hard. (Truth to be told I never resuscitated a person post drowning/immersion successfully)

    To boil it down to a single sentence: The patient is the one who started it.

    What you are responsible for is the fact that he had a chance and had another day- it means his heart was beating at some point but the damage was done. You have contributed the biggest part to restarting it (seriously, all our ALS paramedic shenanigans are worthless without bystander CPR) and therefore gave him a chance and gave the family time. (And gave a third person a chance for an organ potentially)