Two local health providers say it is extremely important for people to learn CPR, especially in light of the recent cardiac arrest of Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin.
Gracie Smith, chest pain coordinator at Medical Center Hospital, and Dr. Martin Ortega, a family medicine physician at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, said it’s good to be educated on the procedure.
February is National Heart Month. About 350,000 out of hospital cardiac arrests occur annually and three-fourths of those happen at home.
“It’s likely somebody you know; could be a family member or a friend,” Smith said. “A lot of people are afraid to do CPR. They think they may injure the person or hurt them more, especially women, so they are a lot less likely to receive help when they need it.”
However, she said, cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer for women.
“When you put all those statistics together, your odds of survival for an out of hospital cardiac arrest is about 9 percent. So CPR is definitely important,” Smith said.
Dr. Martin Ortega, a family medicine physician with Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, said doing compressions to the rhythm of the Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive” alive is the common standard —about 100 pushes per minute.
Ortega said you should call 911 and continue giving CPR until medical professionals arrive.
People don’t have to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation anymore. They can use hands only CPR.
“There’s two basic steps. If you see someone suddenly collapse, they’re not breathing, they don’t have a pulse and that would be to call 911 to get help on the way and get that going … and then pushing hard and fast in the center of the chest and that’s correlated to effective CPR, even if one is not going to be doing breaths … at the same time. That hands-only method for CPR is so beneficial and endorsed by even the American Heart Association,” Ortega said.
Smith said studies have been conducted that show compressions are what make a big difference.
“That’s what gives you perfusion in your body and ensures that you’re getting whatever remaining oxygen is in your blood to all of your vital organs like your brain, your lungs and your kidneys. The studies have shown that doing those compressions until help can arrive actually improves the patient’s chances of survival; double or triples their survival rate,” Smith said.
She added that there are other songs than “Staying Alive” to keep in your head that have the same beat that can be found on the American Heart Association website.
It’s 100 to 120 compressions per minute and you want to go about two to two and a half inches into the chest.
“It’s unlikely that you would crack a rib or their sternum or anything like that. It is a possibility, but it outweighs the outcome if you’re able to help them survive that cardiac arrest,” Smith said.
She added that if it happens when other people are around you can engage them to take over for you if you’re tiring out.
“We even do that in ICU and in ER. We switch places so that person doesn’t get tired, but you want to keep the pauses in between switching people less than 10 seconds. That way you can continue that perfusion,” Smith said.
Perfusion is the blood flow getting oxygen to your organs.
Ector County ISD Chief Communications Officer Mike Adkins said high school students are required to take CPR.
Smith said she will also be teaching the junior volunteers how to do CPR.
She found a statistic showing that only about half of U.S. workers can find where the automatic external defibrillators are at their jobs.
“That’s pretty scary. It would be beneficial for everyone to know that information because you never know when you’ll need it. The AEDs now are very user friendly … You just push the power on button and it tells you what to do. It will tell you when to continue compressions, when to stop, when to keep your hands off the patient in case it needs to shock, if it’s a shockable rhythm,” Smith said.
Even if you’re 30 minutes outside of the city, she said she could not stress calling 911 strongly enough.
“As soon as you see that something’s going on, whether it’s a cardiac arrest or any other type of emergency, you don’t want to delay that response time. Time is muscle. Your heart’s a muscle. We use that saying a lot with medical things because it’s true,” Smith said.
Ortega said the situation with Hamlin was extraordinary and highlighted the importance of something that is commonplace where anyone can make a big difference.
“Any one of us can be trained and educated on CPR and it saves lives as we’ve been able to see, especially because so many heart problems happen at work or at home,” Ortega said.
But he added that Hamlin’s incident was rare.
He added that CPR and basic aid courses are part of onboarding for different jobs such as working in medicine, day and childcare centers.
If a cardiac arrest happens, Ortega said we have to be aware and prepared. Like Smith, Ortega said the AED’s have clearly marked, simple, step by step instructions in terms of pad placements.
“So again certainly the need for education for all of us is really important and awareness. But it’s not anything that’s beyond any one of us to learn how to do and therefore be prepared to act and … be prepared to perform CPR right away …,” Ortega said.
“… Like with anything else, in any walk of life, we rise to the level of our training so taking the time to prepare through an educational course would be phenomenal and very high yield so that should an emergency arise around us we feel prepared instead of only afraid,” Ortega said. “It’s natural to feel afraid if you witness this, but in addition to being afraid you can be prepared and feel ready to do that especially if you have some education and training beforehand.”
The prevailing theory of what might have happened to Hamlin is that a blow to his chest threw off the regular electrical activity of the heart and that placed him in a “really precarious position where the pumping action of the heart was disrupted and his body and his brain didn’t receive that oxygen-rich blood and he collapsed,” Ortega said.
The condition is called Commotio Cordis.
“So whenever the training staff got to the field and they initiated CPR and used the AED, they helped to bring back or to restore that, first the circulation through CPR and then potentially a more normal rhythm with the AED,” he added.
Football players wear shoulder pads that cover their chest, but competitors in martial arts, for example, don’t have chest protection. But Ortega said it’s still rare.
Smith said she believes since Hamlin’s cardiac arrest there has been more interest in CPR.
“It really does make a big impact and a difference if you’re able to get help to the person who’s having that arrest as soon as possible. But yes, that being broadcasted on national television, I think was a big eye opener for people who aren’t used to being in those types of situations. Health care providers, or people who have to do CPR on a more routine basis, it’s not anything that probably surprised or shocked them. But I think for the layperson, or the bystanders who aren’t familiar with it, it definitely probably was a big eye opener for hopefully an encourager for them to go out and get the education they need,” Smith said.
