CPR

I attended a CPR and Automated External Defibrillator (AED) class over the weekend. As a liturgical minister at my church, I was asked to attend. The last time I was trained in CRP was back in sixth grade and I have never been trained on AED. I've seen them in public places, but have never been up close to one.

The class started with discussion and a PowerPoint presentation. All of it was basic stuff that I remembered from sixth grade. After the presentation, we were shown how to use the AED. The machine tells you want to do and shows pictures on where to stick the probes on the victim. It was all pretty self explanatory.

Following the AED demo, we finally got to try CPR on the dummies. We were split into teams of two. One person was to do the chest compressions, the other to perform the rescue breathing to the victim. My partner started with the chest compressions. We did a ratio of 30 compressions and two breaths. We did that for a couple of minutes, then switched positions.

I felt comfortable at both positions. Now if I had to perform CPR in real life, I would probably be nervous. The CPR dummy made a clicking noise if your hands were in the correct position while performing the chest compressions. Our instructor said it would be nice if that would really happen. But it doesn't. I would most be afraid of having my hands in the wrong spot and end up cracking the victim's ribs. But if I'm ever in that situation, I shouldn't think that. I should be thinking about helping the victim and getting them breathing again.

It was nice to have a refresher on CPR. You never know when it may come in handy.