At the end of a mountain road in Austria during the summer of
2003, I waited for a boat with my family on a dock at a large lake. Suddenly I
saw a man fall to the sidewalk. His skin had turned that ashen blue color, andit was clear to me that he was in cardiac arrest. There was a crowd of more
than 75 persons just standing and looking at him. I knew what to do when there
was no detectable pulse or breathing.
Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) chest
compressions were started immediately. His skin color returned to nearly
normal. After a few minutes, a single bystander came up and said they knew how
to do breaths. At that time, recommendations were for intermittent breathing as
well as chest compressions. The stricken person made it alive to the EMSvehicle that took nearly 30 minutes to arrive. While I do not know the eventual
outcome, I do know he was successfully resuscitated using an Automated External
Defibrillator (AED). Furthermore with the quick application of CPR, he likely
had a full recovery. Unfortunately, from the crowd response at that time, there
were not enough people trained to act in this emergency situation where seconds
really count.
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