The Boy Scout motto, which we all had to memorize to earn the Scout Rank is: Be prepared. So, I memorized it and said it to my Scout Master so I could begin earning my Tenderfoot rank. At the time, two words was about the extent of my ability to memorize.
But no one really explained to us what we were supposed to be prepared for. Did it have anything to do with bears coming into our camp? If we were indeed responsible for being prepared for any situation which would arise, I would have to spend considerably more time in the library speedreading books on every topic to get a general knowledge of what to do when a situation needed a solution, and in the fifth grade I was lucky to read through one book a year.
It was not until this year that I found out that Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouts, had intended the boys to be ready for anything from a sudden accident to the defense of their country. When he was asked what they should be prepared for, he replied, “Any old thing.”
The motto has awakened me at 4:30 many mornings as I lie in bed wondering, “What am I not prepared for today?”
This was something that I brought up with my best friend, Chuck, as we stood out on a sandbar, river fishing for Silver Salmon. He was about twenty feet upriver, fishing with his nine-foot rod which was now eight foot, six inches long since he chopped six inches off the tip by dropping his tailgate closed before he got his pole completely out of the back of his SUV.
“Here’s something I was thinking about,” I said as I lifted my boonie hat and swabbed the sweat from my forehead. “What would you do if I grabbed my chest and fell over on the beach?”
“You mean dead, or just fell over like you sometimes do?”
“I mean a heart attack.”
“Well, if you were dead anyway, I might swap my pole with yours and check in your tackle box to see if there’s anything I need.”
“You mean that you wouldn’t start CPR?”
“Hypothetically speaking, what if I had a fish on?”
“Would you call, 911?”
“When I got the fish on the beach.”
“You know, this is something we need to be thinking about. Neither one of us is getting any younger.”
“You are actually six months older than me.”
“When was the last time you took a CPR class? I haven’t taken one for about 15 years.”
“How old were we when we were working on our First Aid merit badges in Scouts?” he asked.
“Well, cripes! I’m signing us up for a class.”
And immediately after I had lost another three lures to a snag in the river, I went to the local fire hall and inquired about their next CPR class.
“We don’t get many men your age signing up for the class, a buff looking 20-something firefighter told me. Mostly, we get older women who are running daycares, or young kids who need it for a college class requirement. Are you physically up for it?”
“Hey,” I said, obviously offended. “If I can still use my bicycle pump to inflate my lawnmower tire, I think I can push on a chest for two minutes.”
“Yeah,” he said, slowly eyeing my out of shape muscles. “I’ll put you down for this Saturday.”
“Oh, I’ve been put down before. And put down my buddy, Chuck too. I’m relying on him to be the one to kick start me if I keel over.”
So, Saturday came, and I drug the reluctant Charles to the 9am CPR class. Just as the fireman had warned us, we were the only two “Older” men in a group of mature women and college girls.
“Thank you for attending Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation training,” the instructor said. “Let’s go around the room and tell us your first name and why you are taking the training.”
As was predicted when I enquired about the class, the older women were daycare owners or workers, and the college age attenders were taking CPR as one of the requirements for a Community College class. When it got to us, we had the classes’ attention because no one understood why two old broken down men were interested in CPR.
“My name is Marty and I worry about my partner, here. He could shut down at any time.”
“My name is Chuck and I’m six months younger than him. I doubt that I would jump start him because look at that face. I’m not blowing air into that mouth.”
Sometimes the truth hurts.
There were three adult Resusci-Anne mannequins lying on the floor and three infant Anne dolls on a table. The instructor began giving us scenarios about finding an unresponsive person and what to do if you were by yourself, or with other people helping. He showed us proper hand placement on the sternum and how deep to compress. He then produced some alcohol swabs and wiped the mouth of Anne and showed us how to tilt the head, lift the jaw, pinch the nose, and blow in, raising Anne’s chest.
“For your information, Anne holds the record for being the most kissed doll in the world. We will apply two blasts of air and then start compressions at a rate of 100-120 beats per minute. Try to think of a song that has a beat of 120 beats per minute, like Row, Row, Row Your Boat. You will alternate between two breaths and 30 compressions. Since we only have three Annes, while one person is practicing, the rest will watch and critique.”
The college age kids seemed eager to get practicing, so they gathered around one mannequin and one of the kids began. Chuck and I, and the older women were a little more hesitant to be the first to begin, so one of the women volunteered. She was a rather large woman in her late 50’s. With a little help, she lowered herself to the floor and sat on her knees next to Anne. After attempting to wake the patient, she concluded that Anne was not breathing and had no pulse. She told one of us to call 911, then, having previously swabbed the dolls mouth area, she tilted Anne’s head, brought her jaw up, pinched her nose, took a deep breath and came down on Anne’s mouth to give her the first breath of air, and . . .
“Frapp!”
Those standing around critiquing took a step back and looked at each other, not knowing what to do. In all fairness, she was able to fill Anne’s lungs also.
The next woman up was a thin woman also in her late 50’s. She took the position on the floor and after concluding that Anne was not just sleeping, she filled the doll with two blasts of air and began the chest compressions. After cycling through the process twice, she stood to let the next person in the group try. She faced the group with a smile on her face, as if to say, “That wasn’t so hard.”
The group’s reaction was, “Whoa!” She had blown so hard into Anne’s mouth that she broke a blood vessel in her right eye and the white of that eye was dark red.
“The old group ain’t doing so good,” Chuck mumbled.
“The next thing we are going to introduce into the mix is the AED unit,” the instructor announced. “The acronym AED stands for Automated External Defibrillator. More and more businesses, churches, and schools are buying them, so you should be familiar with how to use them.”
He went through the attaching process, which included removing the clothing from the chest area where the electrodes would be placed.
“Using an AED requires no previous training because the pads are marked to show you where to place them and an audio voice will give you instructions. Chuck and Marty haven’t done their CPR practice yet, so you guys get on the floor. One of you will be doing the CPR and the other will apply the AED pads, then you will switch.”
Using a chair, we lowered ourselves onto our knees. The crackling of the joints made me worry that we might not be getting up again. I was in position for the CPR. We ascertained that our victim had no heartbeat and was not breathing.
“Okay, call 911 and see if you can find an AED,” I told him, “but first take her shirt off.”
“Whoa, hold on! I’m not taking any female’s top off. My wife would kill me.”
“As soon as the paramedics arrive, her top is coming off anyway,” the instructor commented.
There was much grumbling as we removed her sweatshirt. I then began CPR as Chuck applied the shock pads to her chest and we followed the instructions given to us by the AED box. After swapping out positions, we had reached the limit of our ability to sit on our knees on the floor and both needed chairs to pull ourselves up to a standing position.
The last demonstration of the morning was dislodging obstructions in infant and adult windpipes. The J-Stroke, or Heimlich Maneuver, to be used on an adult, was done by pairing up the class. One person stood behind the other, made a fist, and visualized the upward thrust from a spot above the navel to the breastbone.
When I placed my arms around Chuck and made a fist in the center of his belly I asked, “Should I try one thrust so you can see what it feels like?”
“Not unless you want a wad of tobacco in that woman’s hair,” he said.
“This is a lot like giving the Heimlich to a very pregnant woman.”
He ground my foot lightly into the carpet with the heel of his steel-toed work boot.
Dislodging an obstacle from a baby required holding the baby in one arm face down, and hitting it between the shoulder blades, five times. If you can’t then see the obstacle in its mouth, lay the baby on its back on one of your arms and slap its chest five times. If that doesn’t dislodge it, start again on the back. This seemed like excessive beating of the baby and because our doll was old, its head kept falling off.
At 11:30, the instructor was satisfied that we could all perform CPR, and he said that our certification cards would be in the mail within the week. Returning once again to the sandbar, Chuck cast his lure out into the center of the river. I watched as he stepped deeper and deeper into the swiftly flowing current. He was still complaining about the morning of fishing lost to a CPR class.
“Here’s something I was thinking about,” I said. “What if I fell into the river and was being carried downstream. When was the last time you took a junior lifesaving class?
His next cast swung wide over my head and his lure snagged my boonie hat and carried it out and into the far side of the river.
He did that on purpose. I’ll be checking into Lifesaving classes at the YMCA tomorrow.
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