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How CPR Works · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Stuff you should know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and you put the two of us together.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what, You're still gonna come up with
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: stuff you should know. That's right. You're better or for worse.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: That's right, man, you're stuck with me. How are you, sir? Tickled?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: How are you? I'm great? I'm ready to to save
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: some lives with it's your podcast today. You know, it's
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  Speaker 1: entirely possible that we could you never know, like we
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  Speaker 1: could tell somebody how to do the basics of CPR
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  Speaker 1: and we should see O A, I see you even
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  Speaker 1: have it written down, Like if you are interested in
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  Speaker 1: being a above average human being by taking the time
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  Speaker 1: to be taught how to UM save someone's life using
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  Speaker 1: car your pulmonary resuscitation, you should do that, totally should
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  Speaker 1: genuinely you are a better person for that. UM. You
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  Speaker 1: can go to heart dot org, the American Heart Association's website,
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  Speaker 1: type in your zip code and it will bring up
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  Speaker 1: tons of free classes that you can go to at
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  Speaker 1: your convenience and become certified in CPR. Yeah you should
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  Speaker 1: do that because not only could you maybe be a
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  Speaker 1: hero and save some stranger's life, but if you care
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  Speaker 1: about the people around you, wouldn't you love to be
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  Speaker 1: able to save their life exactly at a moment's notice. Exactly,
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  Speaker 1: Like it's almost to me, it's like giving blood. It's
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  Speaker 1: like it's almost a human requirement in this day and age.
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  Speaker 1: You give blood. Of course I do. I keep mind blood,
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  Speaker 1: give me gives blood. She's always like, don't you want
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  Speaker 1: to too? Yeah, you should get blood? I know I should. Yeah. Um,
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  Speaker 1: I don't even know what my blood type is. There's
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  Speaker 1: a pretty good reason to give blood just to find out. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: can you test that too? Yeah? How am I doing?
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  Speaker 1: Might do? And where's the nutter butters? Yeah that's a
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  Speaker 1: that's a bonus too. I always feel guilty when you
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  Speaker 1: me shares their nutter butters with you, Like I didn't
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  Speaker 1: earn these? These are yours? What did she bring him home?
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  Speaker 1: Or do you like go and drop her off and
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  Speaker 1: then just sit with your arm scrossed while she gives blood?
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  Speaker 1: Be all right ready? Yeah, man, let's let's CPR. Oh so,
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  Speaker 1: we're still in the middle of the c o A
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  Speaker 1: UM like this is no way intended to replace one
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  Speaker 1: of those classes. Like you listen to this podcast. You're
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  Speaker 1: not certified, pal, you're possibly a bigger danger than you
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  Speaker 1: know before. You're certifiable, but you're not certified. So this
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  Speaker 1: is intended to, I guess maybe just kind of go
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  Speaker 1: over the absolute basics of CPR UM and hopefully pique
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  Speaker 1: you're interested enough to get you to go out and
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  Speaker 1: take a real class. That's what we're doing here today. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I took when I life Lifeguarded. Obviously took CPR then,
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  Speaker 1: but it's been that's been a while. Yeah, it was
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  Speaker 1: like twenty years old, you know. So why are you
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  Speaker 1: always walking around and nothing but a bathing suit? I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, man, Yeah, I thought you still What are
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  Speaker 1: you doing then? I don't know. I just like to
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  Speaker 1: keep it the skin Mountain Malibu style, Malibu style. UM
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  Speaker 1: Skin to win is my friend says, are you ready? Yeah? Okay,
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  Speaker 1: So are you familiar with the heart? I am okay. Well,
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  Speaker 1: then this won't come as any surprise. The heart has
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  Speaker 1: a little part of it that's called the pacemaking area,
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  Speaker 1: the sinoatrial node the essay node, and the essay node
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  Speaker 1: produces a burst of electricity that stimulates the muscles in
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  Speaker 1: the heart that calls it to pump, usually about on
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  Speaker 1: the low side, once a second. That would mean that
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  Speaker 1: you have a heartbeat of about sixty beats per minute,
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  Speaker 1: which is low on the that's good for resting. Um,
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  Speaker 1: if you're active, it's a little low. But you have
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  Speaker 1: this this thing, this essay no, that that produces electricity,
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  Speaker 1: and it produces it in a reliable rhythm. But certain conditions,
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  Speaker 1: say like dehydration, uh, stress, all sorts of things can
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  Speaker 1: cause your essay no to go a little haywire and
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  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it's shooting out bursts of electricity
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  Speaker 1: in a really weird pattern, no pattern at all. And
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  Speaker 1: when that happens, usually your heart, the pump weakens, the
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  Speaker 1: pump mechanism weakens, so it's going to do and it's
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  Speaker 1: not really beating at all. I mean it's beating, but
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  Speaker 1: it's not really pumping any blood. What you're in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of is called sudden cardiac arrest. Yes, and that
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  Speaker 1: is uh different, this article points out than a heart attack. Right, Um,
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  Speaker 1: if you have a heart attack, that is something that
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  Speaker 1: happens very slowly over time. Uh, and then you will
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  Speaker 1: eventually have the heart attack. That's sort of the end
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  Speaker 1: result of that slow build. And usually it's your heart's
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  Speaker 1: not pumping blood because it's backed up. Yeah, with the
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  Speaker 1: sudden cardiac arrest, your heart is going haywire. It's trying
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  Speaker 1: to pump blood, but it doesn't have the strength to
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  Speaker 1: anymore because the electrical current is being distributed incorrectly. Are
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  Speaker 1: you familiar with defibrillators. I am. You know they have
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  Speaker 1: one here in the office in a d well. They
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  Speaker 1: save lives. Um, if you hit somebody with an a
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  Speaker 1: d with a defibrillator, which is another thing you need
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  Speaker 1: to be trained on before you really try using it.
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  Speaker 1: Clear that's all I can do. And you want to
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  Speaker 1: be clear to you don't want to be touching the
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  Speaker 1: body when it goes off. But you put one paddle
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  Speaker 1: over the heart and one paddle over the other side,
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  Speaker 1: so the middle of the chest, and then on the
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  Speaker 1: left side of the person, and you, you know, shoot
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  Speaker 1: the charge through and what you're doing is not starting
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  Speaker 1: the heart, You're actually turning the heart off. Yeah. I
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  Speaker 1: think everybody that doesn't know about the defibrillators know it's
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  Speaker 1: gonna have trouble that. It's a tough word. I think
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  Speaker 1: most people think that, Yeah, your heart stopped and it
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  Speaker 1: kicks it back, kick starts it back up, right. Not true. No,
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  Speaker 1: it turns it off in the hopes that it will
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  Speaker 1: start back up at a norm normal rhythm. Yeah, like
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  Speaker 1: it resets the pace right, and it frequently works. Um,
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  Speaker 1: but that's just so surprising to mean, it's such a gamble.
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  Speaker 1: It's like, well, the heart's not doing very well right now,
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  Speaker 1: so it's gonna shut it off and see what happened. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that is weird. Um. Sadly, if you have a sudden
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  Speaker 1: cardiac arrest, you have about a five percent chance of
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  Speaker 1: surviving because it is out of the blue. It can
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  Speaker 1: occur to a very healthy person. Um. It can occur
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  Speaker 1: with young people, old people, any kind of person. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's not just like heart disease. It's not. It's a
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  Speaker 1: part of heart disease frequently. But like like I said,
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  Speaker 1: it can result from dehydration when your electrolytes are off. Yeah. Um.
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  Speaker 1: The good news if if you have a heart attack
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  Speaker 1: or a myocardial infarction, um, is that you have pretty
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  Speaker 1: good chance of surviving. That actually, and you know, turning
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  Speaker 1: your life around with diet and maybe get some stints
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  Speaker 1: thrown in there and teaching English to prisoners. Maybe so. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: But all of this is leading up to the fact
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  Speaker 1: that CPR is something that you can increase somebody's chances
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  Speaker 1: who has sudden cardiac arrest. Right, here's the whole point
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  Speaker 1: of CPR, the moment somebody drops dead in front of
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  Speaker 1: you or you come across somebody who's dying or dead
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  Speaker 1: or unconscious. I guess it is a better way to
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  Speaker 1: put it, Like time is of the essence. Their blood
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  Speaker 1: is no longer pumping through their body, their brain is
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  Speaker 1: becoming starved. There they they're at risk of becoming brain damage.
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  Speaker 1: And usually you hear it's there's like a five minute
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  Speaker 1: window where like you really have the opportunity to save
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  Speaker 1: someone's life. Right, So, whether it's running, if somebody's running
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  Speaker 1: and get the defibrillator, or waiting for nine one one
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  Speaker 1: to arrive, waiting for the paramedics to arrive, the whole
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  Speaker 1: point of CPR is to pump blood through the body
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  Speaker 1: to keep this person in this basic, minimal, artificial state
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  Speaker 1: of life so that real medical help can be administered. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you're just trying to dave off uh death basically for
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  Speaker 1: as long as you can until you can get some help.
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  Speaker 1: And and this is nothing new, right, No, it's not. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: there's a little bit of history I dug up. Apparently
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  Speaker 1: the prophet Elisha in the Bible is described as performing
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  Speaker 1: mouth to mouth on a child. Who knows what that meant? Uh?
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  Speaker 1: In seventeen forty, the Paris Academy of Science is like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, it's the Bible. It said he placed his
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  Speaker 1: mouth upon the child's mouth and stuff like that. But
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  Speaker 1: who knows if it was you know, did they describe
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  Speaker 1: what was wrong with the child or you know, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know. I'm sure child was not doing well. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: In the seventeen forty the Paris Academy of Sciences first
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  Speaker 1: recommended mouth to mouth for drowning victims. Yeah, because apparently
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  Speaker 1: up to that point, I was like, Oh, you're drowned,
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  Speaker 1: so that's it for you. We're not even gonna try anything.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe we'll hit you with some sticks. Eight ninety one,
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  Speaker 1: Dr Frederick Moss performed the first documented chess compressions to
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  Speaker 1: human and sadly it was nineteen wenty three years later.
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  Speaker 1: Four years later that Dr George Cryle first reported a
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  Speaker 1: successful resuscitation from chess compression. Well, yeah, it's a it's
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  Speaker 1: a it was a working progress. It was very much
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  Speaker 1: was because and it wasn't until even though mouth to
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  Speaker 1: mouth was a thing that Peter H. Saffar and James
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  Speaker 1: Elam are credited with inventing it as modern CPR in
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  Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties is where they really uh perfected it.
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  Speaker 1: Like nineteen sixties when CPR was officially like named and developed, right,
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  Speaker 1: and then shortly after that came RASA ay, yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: the little kid with the jumpsuit, that's right. Um, all right,
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  Speaker 1: so that's just a little background, right, So it's it's
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  Speaker 1: been around for a little while, but the points always
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  Speaker 1: been the same. It's like somebody's in an emergency situation
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  Speaker 1: and you need to basically stave off death. That's right.
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  Speaker 1: So Chuck, let's say that you come into the podcast
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  Speaker 1: recording booth and uh, you see me just laying on
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  Speaker 1: the floor. What what are you gonna do? Well? I
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  Speaker 1: would scream and cry out and in agony and shock. Firstly,
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  Speaker 1: I'll be very upset, and then the first thing I
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  Speaker 1: would do would say would be to say, Jerry, for
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  Speaker 1: God's sakes, put down the beer and call Mine one
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  Speaker 1: one immediately. See, I would I would suspect that Jerry
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  Speaker 1: would have known I was in here unconscious. That's why
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  Speaker 1: she's drinking the beer. She's just she's celebrating. She got
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  Speaker 1: it from my desk. Yeah, uh so, yeah. First first
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  Speaker 1: thing you want to do is is call mine one
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  Speaker 1: one and get some experienced, some experience help there from
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  Speaker 1: a Well that's that's after you've poked me in the
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  Speaker 1: face and said Josh, Josh and looked at my chest
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  Speaker 1: seeing that it's not rising or falling, and noted that
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  Speaker 1: I'm little more blue than usual. Yeah, I would yell
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  Speaker 1: the call, and I went to one first. But yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you're supposed to check the person. If it's a child
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  Speaker 1: or a baby. They say, never ever shake them, just
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  Speaker 1: stroke them and see if they respond. Baby. Yeah, do
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  Speaker 1: something like that. See if you get a response, and
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  Speaker 1: if it is clear that this person is not breathing
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  Speaker 1: and they're don't look like their heart is beating. Another
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  Speaker 1: big one is that chest rising and following make sure
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  Speaker 1: you could come across somebody and they're just dead drunk,
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  Speaker 1: that's different from dead. Yeah, that's true. And I've seen
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  Speaker 1: that took not from you, but not in the podcast. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And there's a couple of different types of or there's
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  Speaker 1: different types of CPR. UM, and depending on how trained
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  Speaker 1: you are, is one you would which one you would undertake? Right?
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  Speaker 1: So you've just you've determined I'm unconscious. Yeah, you don't
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  Speaker 1: know what's wrong with me, but I'm blue. Um. Jerry
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  Speaker 1: as off dialing nine on one, finishing her beer. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And you are Let's say that you have never done
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  Speaker 1: anything but heard of CPR. What kind of CPR should
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  Speaker 1: you employ? That means and this is from the Mayo Clinic.
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  Speaker 1: They know a thing or two about this. That would
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  Speaker 1: be what's known as an untrained person. And I would
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  Speaker 1: only perform the hands only resuscitation, which will will describe
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  Speaker 1: in detail. That's right. Um. And then let's say that
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  Speaker 1: you've had some training before, but it's been a while.
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  Speaker 1: Well that's me. I'm trained, but rusty. Um. And they say,
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  Speaker 1: still just use the hands only. Don't get cocky, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: don't don't think you remember all that lifeguarding stuff. Let's
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  Speaker 1: say you had just gotten out of a CPR class
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  Speaker 1: and this happened. You would be trained but confident. That
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  Speaker 1: is right, and that means that you can perform full
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  Speaker 1: CPR with rescue breathing, and you know that's great. That
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  Speaker 1: means you're confident and you're delivering of your knowledge. Right.
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  Speaker 1: And then if you have access to an A E D.
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  Speaker 1: Where is the one in this office? Well, I know
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: where it used to be until we redid the kitchen.
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  Speaker 1: Used to be in the break right by the don't
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  Speaker 1: massage your coworker poster. What's that called the you know
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  Speaker 1: when you the warning basically like the drawings and all
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  Speaker 1: that inappropriate touching. I always, I always was caught. My
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: my um attention was always gotten by the labor laws
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  Speaker 1: poster for some reason. Yeah, yeah, I don't know why.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe yeah, Um, that's where it was. I don't know
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  Speaker 1: where it is now. It's probably in there in our
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  Speaker 1: new smaller break around. Yeah, you're right. Um, So if
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  Speaker 1: you have access to an A D you want to
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  Speaker 1: actually deliver one shock and then start CPR. And that's
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  Speaker 1: if you know absolutely in your train you know what
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  Speaker 1: you're doing, but you don't want to waste time looking
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  Speaker 1: for a pulse. They used to always say, check for
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: a pulse, don't bother no, because they found out that
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  Speaker 1: people we're spending a lot more time than they should
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  Speaker 1: trying to find a pulse and just basically wasting time.
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  Speaker 1: I think basically, if you can look at somebody, see
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  Speaker 1: their chess isn't moving, you don't need to look for
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  Speaker 1: a pulse. Yeah. I mean, if I was on the ground,
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  Speaker 1: the last thing I would want to hear is I'm
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  Speaker 1: fading out. Is I can't quite tell us that of pulse?
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  Speaker 1: All right, come here, what does that feel like? A pulse?
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  Speaker 1: What do you call pulse? Thread? Yeah? And then you're
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  Speaker 1: down there just going just please start compressions. So the
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  Speaker 1: the American Heart Association said, you know what, let's just
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  Speaker 1: go around this and really focus on the chests compressions.
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  Speaker 1: Over time, they've they've in two thousand ten, they really
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: changed everything. And so just do chess compressions. Anything else
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: is like additional, but just do chess compressions. And um,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: so let's let's talk about chess compressions. Well before we
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: do the chess compressions. If I came in here, luckily
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: we have a nice flat, uh first grade carpet type
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: of scene in here, um so I would not have
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  Speaker 1: to move you. Um, but I do want to get
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you on your back on a flat, hard surface. If
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: you're face down, then that's sad for you, and I
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: would gently roll you. Actually, i'd probably do it like quicker. Well,
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  Speaker 1: you want to really be careful to support the neck,
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  Speaker 1: because if somebody already has a neck injury, you can
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  Speaker 1: make it way worse if you just flop them around.
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  Speaker 1: Or if they have a you know, a piece of
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: steak stuck in their throat, you know you don't want
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: to get it lodged further. So you want to support
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  Speaker 1: the head and neck as you pull the person towards
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: you so that they're on their back. Now, that's right,
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  Speaker 1: all right. And since two thousand and ten, it used
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: to be the A B C method airway breathing circulation.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: They have now revised that to the CAB method. Yeah,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: airway meant that you would stick your finger down the
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: person's throat to see if there was anything you could dislodge,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: but they passed out from choking. Now it's just basically
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: chest compressions in the A b um come second, Yeah,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: and like like scraping out the airway and then breathing
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  Speaker 1: rescue breathing. You don't even do those. If you don't
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  Speaker 1: know what you're doing, it's all chest compression, that's right.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: But the new order once again, just remember thank cab,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I gotta call a cab. Don't don't call a cabin.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Just waste time. They won't know what you're talking about.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: That's right. So with chest compressions, we talked a lot
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  Speaker 1: about it. What you want to do is you want
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: to kneel near the neck and shoulders. You've probably seen
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  Speaker 1: this on TV. It's pretty accurate. Usually. Uh, put the
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  Speaker 1: heel of your hands on top of one another in
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  Speaker 1: the center of the chest, midway between the nipples. So
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  Speaker 1: one palm down, the heel of your hand in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of the chest, your other hand over it. It's
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  Speaker 1: really forming this really solid piece of hand. That's right. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: You want to keep your elbow straight like they do
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  Speaker 1: on TV, so you're not using all of your arms.
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  Speaker 1: You're actually using your body weight to compress the chest. Um.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I think how many inches one to two inches for
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  Speaker 1: an adult? You want to compress it down one to
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  Speaker 1: two inches, which that's gotta seem like a lot. What
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  Speaker 1: if you're the person on the ground, No, if you
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: like yeah, if you're making a compression like pushing somebody's
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  Speaker 1: chest in two inches. That's significant, you know, and that's
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  Speaker 1: why you gotta put all your body into it. Keep
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  Speaker 1: those arms, elbows locked and uh nice and rigid. Oh
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: and if you're in Canada or the UK, you want
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: to compress someone's chest two point five four centimeters to
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: five point eight centimeters, that's what that's what we're saying.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: When we're saying when the two inches it's in this
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: case it is much easier to learn inches, I think. So, uh,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: you want to make these chess compressions about a hundred
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: times a minute, which is not We have a what
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a base sixty minute sixty second minute, so a hundred
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: seems weird to us. Right, how do you how do
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: you keep that rhythm in your head? It sounds unbelievable,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: but you want to hum the song in your head
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Staying Alive by the Beaches, right, It actually is a
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: hundred and three beats per minute. So if you can
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: hit that song, stay at pump, you will pump, stay
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: in a love pump, pump pump, And don't like that,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: don't hold that pump on the a lot. You want
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: to keep it going. You're gonna hit a hundred a
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: hundred and three chest compressions a minute. It's so awesome
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that it's staying alive, I know. And they they chose
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: a great song because most people know that song, and
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: they say most people can remember the pace of that song.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: And it's right, you know, kind of right at the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: hundred to one or three beats per minute. So you're
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: doing pretty well there. And if you have a baby
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: on your hands, um, you want to do chest compressions
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: using the same techniques, but you only want to compress
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the chest about um, one inch I believe one and
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: a half inches, and you're using your two your middle
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: finger in your index finger rather than you're the heels
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: of your hands. But you're still doing it in the
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: middle of the chest, in between the nipples. One and
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: a half inch compressions a hundred a minute, yeah, and
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: just less aggressive, you know. And you want to support
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the baby's head while you're doing it too. Basically you
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: want to lay them across like the length of your
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: forearm with their head in your hand. I cannot imagine
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: anything more horrifying than performing CPR on a baby, but
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: it's good to know for sure, um, what you're doing
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: here is you are basically squeezing the heart between the
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: breastbone and the backbone to artificially get blood out of
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: it moving through the body that oxygen eated blood and
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: uh like, are you literally trying to get the heart
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: going again or just deliver oxygen until someone gets there?
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Is what gets the heart going. All you're doing is
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: distributing oxygenated blood through the body. Like when the heart pumps,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: it doesn't make a whole circuit through your body. It
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: just pumps the blood a little bit, a little bit,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: a little bit, and then eventually this little segment of
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: blood which with each pump will follow the course through
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the body. So you are um oxygen eating you You're
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: pumping oxygenated blood through the body. And you can go
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: to hands only CPR dot org. It's a good website
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: to reinforce this. But again, American Red Cross is where
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: you want to go to get a regular class, get certified,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: and they will teach you also rescue breathing too, because
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: you're I guess then oxygen eating the blur. You're allowing
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the blood to be oxygen eated by introducing air into
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the lungs. That is very true. So yeah, all you're
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: doing is just keeping like the body, like probably specifically
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the brain fed with blood CPR, that's what you're doing. So, um,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: why wouldn't somebody want to do this? Uh? Well, one
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: of the first things I looked up was lawsuits because
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I don't I never knew if it was true or not.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: But you always hear about people like I'm not you know,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I don't want to get sued. I don't want to
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: perform CPR on that person. There's something called the Good
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Samaritan laws. Have you heard of these? The remember the
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: last episode of Seinfeld they all got law. Yeah, there's
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: various uh incarnations of Good Samaritan laws. But in the
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: case of CPR, it protects people that perform CPR if
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: they are generally if they are UM medically trained. Oh
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: so like if you have a CPR certification, you'd be protected,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: you would be protected and um, and it has to
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: be uh, it must be the persons just it must
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: be like if you try to save me, it's gotta
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: be your idea, like, Hey, I'm just gonna go save
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: this guy. And someone didn't drag you over there and
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: say he's a doctor, and you can't actually be a doctor.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: And be still be protected like in the hospital. Like
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: it doesn't cover you know, hospitals and stuff obviously, because
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: that's their job. They're not SENI. Yeah, it's gotta be
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: entirely voluntary. And um, certain states is a state thing. Obviously,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: certain states are now enacting laws that protect anyone. I
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: know Pennsylvania passed one last year that even if you're
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: not certified, if you give it the old college try,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: then you can't be sued. That's good, which is which
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: is great. You know you want people diving in there.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Imagine like you saved my life. But I
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: didn't ask you too, so I'm suing you. Um. I
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: also went to the freakonomics site because you know how
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: they always break things down in interesting ways like racially
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: in and as far as like income goes, and out
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: of fourteen thousand two cardiac arrest patients, by standard initiated
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: CPR was provided point six percent of the time, and uh,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah, And in low income black neighborhoods, low
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: income white neighborhoods, and low income integrated neighborhoods, and high
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: income black neighborhoods, your odds of getting CPR perform were
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: way less um than high income white neighborhoods and high
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: income integrated neighborhoods. I don't know, but freeconomics is always
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: studying all that stuff and how it affects, you know,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the United States, like economically and racially, So I thought
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: that was kind of interesting. Um, you know, there's a
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: lot of people who also, for a long time worried
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: about catching a disease from mouth to mouth, Yeah, which
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: is another reason. Apparently the Heart Association said, let's just
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: do chest compressions only, like you're to catch anything. But
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: supposedly there's no documented case of anyone catching anything serious
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: from giving mouth to mouth and rescue breathing, So nothing
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: to worry about there either. That's good, although I think
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: if you do that to a drowning victim, and you're
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: drowning victim, like they often spit up stuff, so you
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: might get a face full of sea water. But frankly,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: it's a small price to pay for being a hero.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen this go downpr or anything yet? Know?
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Not in person. I haven't either. I can't imagine that
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: would be And I have friends who have like seen
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: stuff like this and like in restaurants or I think
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: I had one friend that saw some guy like dropped
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: dead on the beach and some guy brought him back
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to life. Yeah, I would love to be there. I'd
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: love to do it. But yeah, well we can start
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: looking for situations. Would you jump in there? Oh yeah,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I like to think I would. Sure, I would. I
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: think if someone else was really confident ahead of me,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't like shove them aside, step aside. I'm gonna
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: try my hand at this, but I would sure. I would. Definitely,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I would definitely get in there. And well, that's we
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: should also say that's probably accounts for a lot of
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the reasons why people don't do it, is because they
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: think they would and then it happens and they are
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: frozen in panic or terror or whatever. So that's apparently
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: one of the things this article says is that's another
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: reason why people aren't thinking. Like you said to yourself
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: when you came into the podcast, but you screamed luckily
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: off for Jerry, right, But yeah, you shook it off
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and started to think, but you screamed. Uh. If you
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: want to learn more about CPR, yeah, you can go
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: to how stuff works dot com and type that word
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: in the search part, we strongly urge you instead, were
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: in addition to to h www dot heart dot org,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: look for a CPR course near you and take it, uh,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: And I said org. So that means it's time for
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: listening mail or Ah yeah, Josh, this is uh perfect
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: timing for this email and it just came in actually
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: a couple of days ago. And it is sad, but
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: this guy wanted to get the message out. This from
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Dan in Austin. Guys have been meaning to write for
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: ages with little bits and pieces that I picked up
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: working as a travel photographer in Indonesia for almost twenty years. However,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: events this past summer UH made these seemike trivialities. Has
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: taken this long to complete the email. In July last year,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: while playing with friends in the backyard, my sixteen year
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: old daughter suffered sudden cardiac arrest and collapse. Despite the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: best efforts of those around her, they will not able
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: they were not able to recover her pulse and she
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: passed on. We would never know the exact nature of
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: the attack, but have since discovered such attacks, which can
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: be to a number of causes, are alarmingly and tragically frequent,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: and healthy young adults, although broadly defined by either structural
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: defects or faults within the electrical circuits that coordinate the hearts, muscles,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: essential beats. Sudden cardiac arrest, which what you've been talking
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: about here, uh strikes down between four thousand and seven
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: thousand children every year in the U. S A loans
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: you like we said, you know, like, this guy's daughter
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: was totally healthy sixteen year old. Unlike many of the
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: diseases and conditions that you have covered on the show.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: With s c A, the first symptoms of a life
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: threatening condition maybe at the time of death. Even equipped
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: with resuscitation equipment, survival rates are terrifyingly small, and without
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: any equipment they're almost non existent. There are tests, however,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: that can be done once kids reach a certain age
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: about fourteen, when the heart has reached its adult size,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: but as individuals walking in off the street, the cost
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: of these tests may seem prohibitively expensive to parents who
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: are not at a quickly informed of the hidden dangers
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: that their children face. There are, however, incredible organizations out
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: there that are working to change both the public awareness
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and the risks of s c A, and are also
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: conducting screening programs to get as many children as possible
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: check for no cost. So one of these coincidentally is
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: in Austin where he lives, and he came out to
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: our pariety show. By the way. Uh, it's called the
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Championship Hearts Foundation, and that is Championships Hearts Foundation dot
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: org and that's hearts plural um. And they have the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: express purpose of making cardiac screening affordable and accessible to
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: as many families as possible, and frequently conducts community screenings
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: around Central Texas where they see like five kids a day. Um. Well,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: when I can tell you that they can find the
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: presence of some form of potentially fatal cardiac condition and
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: one out of every two hundred kids or less, you
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: can appreciate the value of their mission for all these
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: kids their families. This means the saving of a life
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: with proper diagnosis, a treatment many children identify going to
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: live healthy lives and active lives. So had I been
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: better informed guys of this potentially fatal yet silent dangerous
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: that look unseen, I would have made sure to have
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: my daughter scanned, just as I will have my son
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: scanned when they're old enough. I hope that every parent
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: listening does the same. So that is Dan, Thanks Dan,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: And that is Championship Hearts Foundation dot org. And he
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: said there's lots of good organizations and I didn't know
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: about that. And if I ever have kids, that's something
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: that I am going to have done when they reached
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the right age. Yeah, maybe we should just start grabbing
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: random kids off the street and having them screen. Have
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: you been checked. I've got a lot of parents have
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: no idea about this. It's very sad. Yeah. Well, I'm
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: thank you very much Dan for letting everybody know. That
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: was a great, great letter. Yeah, we corresponded a couple
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: of times over the past few days and just unbelievable.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: We went through a very good guy. Yeah, well cool, Um,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: thank you for writing in. If you have a story
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: that you think everybody needs to know about that no
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: one does. We want to help you get the word out. Um.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s y SK podcast.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: you Should Know, send us an email to Stuff Podcast
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com, and you can always find us
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: on the web at stuff you should Know dot com
• 29:21
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• 29:24
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• 29:33
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