Page 74 - Occupational Health & Safety, October 2018

DEFIBRILLATORS & CPR
Could This Happen to You?
When a CPR/AED plan is in place and practiced, a person suffering cardiac arrest will receive care from trained individuals and teams working to save a life.
BY DAVE TOBIN
You get to work early because you have a meeting that you want to prep for and, as you do every morning, you take the eleva- tor to the fourth floor. As you exit the eleva- tor, there he is—the longtime and loyal security guard calls out for help, and you see him collapse. Now he is lying face down on the tile floor in the hallway. You know right away that something must be done, and it must to be done fast.
Fortunately, your company keeps an automated external defibrillator (AED) in the main lobby. As you run to get the AED, you call for help, and one of your colleagues emerges from the coffee room. You both run to the guard’s side. You assess the guard; he is not moving and he is not breathing. You recall from your training that he needs CPR and he needs the AED.
What happened to the security guard? What you are witnessing is an adult who is in cardiac arrest. Car- diac arrest is when a person’s heart stops beating, and they stop breathing. This is not to be confused with a “heart attack.” A heart attack is when the heart is hun- gry for oxygen. This can be caused by a blood clot or plaque buildup that blocks blood flow to the heart. If the heart continues to starve for oxygen, it may stop, or arrest. The American Heart Association estimates that each year, there are about 10,000 cardiac arrest incidents in the workplace.
How can you in the situation described above? First, you need to keep a level head and get help on the way. Emergency medical services need to be called us- ing 911. The EMTs and paramedics will bring medica- tions and other devices that can help, but in the mean- time, you can buy some time for the security guard. Because his heart is not beating enough to send blood to the brain and vital organs, you are going to do that for him by performing cardiopulmonary resuscita- tion, or CPR.
You want to position the victim on his back and expose the chest. Once you have exposed his chest, you are going to place the heel of one hand on the low- er half of his sternum, or breastbone. As the heart has stopped, you are going to compress straight down on the victim’s chest about 1 1⁄2 to 2 inches. When you do this, you are squeezing the heart between the sternum and the spine, making the heart “beat.” While this is not as effective as a normal heartbeat, you are circulat- ing blood to the victim’s brain, lungs, and the rest of his body. You are going to do these compressions at a rapid rate of 100-120 compressions per minute.
You are buying time by circulating blood through- out the victim’s body. According to the AHA, hands- free CPR has been shown to be as effective as con- ventional CPR performed at work or in public. You also need to attach the AED that you brought from the lobby.
Using the AED
Even though the security guard’s heart is not beating, there still may be some electrical activity present. Our hearts utilize electricity to beat roughly 60-100 times each minute, for adults. The heart may be quivering with uncoordinated electrical impulses. Because the impulses are uncoordinated, the heart does not push out the blood that the body needs. The AED is a life- saving tool that can change that. Your colleague is go-
70 Occupational Health & Safety | OCTOBER 2018
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