Have you ever performed CPR on yourself?

Let's say it's 6.15 pm and you're going home (alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job. You're really tired, upset and frustrated.

Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home. Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far. You have been trained in CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation), but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.

What is Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation?

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) is the reestablishing of heart and lung action after cardiac arrest or apparent sudden death resulting from electric shock, drowning, respiratory arrest, and other causes. The two major components of CPR are artificial ventilation and closed chest cardiac massage.

Each year millions of people die suddenly from heart attack, poisoning, drowning, and other causes. Many of these lives could be saved by administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), which restores the circulation of oxygen-rich blood to the brain. CPR involves two main steps: chest compression and mouth-to-mouth ventilation.

How to Survive a Heart Attack When Alone?

Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.

However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest.

A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.

Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital. Tell as many other people as possible about this. It could save their lives!

A cardiologist says if everyone who reads this article sends it to 10 people, you can be sure that we'll save at least one life.

Some Related Articles

http://www.thehealthpages.com/articles/ar-cprgd.html

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User Comments

bluestar@netactive.co.za on Sun, Dec 23rd, 2007 at 9:29 AM

First of all it is impossible to do CPR on yourself. The reason is that a person requiring CPR is in "Cardiac arrest". This person is unconscious and not breathing. This article would be directed and confined to a patient who is in hospital and connected to an ECG monitor. During this time the patient is monitored continuously and a doctor is present. This has been mislabeled "Cough CPR". The best strategy is to be aware of the early warning signs of a Heart Attack and to call the Emergency Medical Services. Call 911 in the USA, 112 in Europe and 999 in the UK. An official Policy statement was released by the relevant Resuscitation Councils around the world. - Barry Milner (First Aid and BLS Instructor) South Africa