Life can be going along just fine and then you do something dumb, like not checking if there’s a toothpick in the appetizer you’ve just popped into your mouth and gulped down without really chewing. After quickly googling “what happens if you swallow a toothpick” and skimming a few horror stories about tragic outcomes, you might find yourself sitting in the ER waiting room, feeling like the world’s biggest idiot, hoping the worst thing is you’ve given the hospital staff a funny tale to share in the break room.
Death by toothpick was never on my list of ways I thought I might die. But sometimes the simplest thing can mean the difference between life and death. This is why my husband and I spent a few hours this week with a dozen other folks at New Life CPR, practicing chest compressions on adult and baby mannequins.
I had joked with Mike when I signed him up that it was for selfish reasons since I had taken it many times over the years for work, but he’d only seen it done on TV. I didn’t want to imagine him googling “how to perform CPR” if something bad happened to me.
Owners Lesa and Dan West have been teaching CPR and first aid classes for over 38 years to healthcare workers, first responders, sports teams, high school kids, Scouts — anyone who needs to learn these lifesaving skills. Lesa shared that if we ever have to do CPR, she can almost guarantee it won’t be on a stranger, but on someone we know and love: a spouse, child, family member, friend or neighbor.
It’s not hard to learn, after some basic instructions. What’s important is building muscle memory of how to keep the blood pumping to someone’s brain while you wait for an ambulance or an AED device to try to restart the heart. Thirty compressions, two breaths, repeat until help arrives. Two minutes of CPR felt like 10 while we practiced. If you were working on someone you love, it would feel like forever.
At the end of the class, Lesa brought out the AED and showed us how it worked to shock and reboot the heart from its current quivering state and help get it beating the way it should. She assured us the machine would never shock anyone with a detected heartbeat, so we put the pads on the dummy’s chest, pressed the button to start the machine, and listened as the machine guided us through the steps we had to do to continue to help the victim.
It was comforting to listen to the AED as it tested for a response, told us to back off while it delivered the shock, checked for a heartbeat, and then instructed us to continue to perform chest compressions while sending out an audible beat and strobe light to follow.
I’ve seen AEDs hanging on the walls of my local gym and in a few churches and businesses around town. I honestly didn’t think about them until I saw this one in action in class this week. While I hope I never have to use one, I feel better knowing that if I had to start CPR or attach the pads of an AED to someone’s chest, I could do it now.
Which is exactly why Lesa and Dan do what they do. And they wish they could do more of it. They want everyone to know how important it is to get more AEDs out in the Quad Cities, train our friends and neighbors how to use them, and teach them how to perform CPR. She says people worry they’ll make things worse, but you can’t hurt someone by performing CPR or using and AED. For someone with no heartbeat, you’re the best chance they’ve got.
Mike and I walked out of class with a paper card showing we are CPR-certified, our pockets $25 lighter, and the comfort of knowing if the worst thing happened, we’d at least be able to try to save a life. You can’t put a price on that feeling.