This is another question along the same lines of improper/excessive use of tourniquets.

A corrections officer was shot in a training accident and the story says bystanders were performing CPR on him while he was conscious. The earliest training I got on CPR stressed that it wasn’t appropriate if the patient was breathing, much less conscious.

Has something changed, or is it just a matter of “I’ve been trained on CPR, and by golly, I’m going to use it”? It’s been a while since I attended a CPR class, but does the training include when it’s appropriate and when it’s not?

(I still wonder why CPR would be appropriate on even an unconscious gunshot victim, but I guess that’s been discussed as a “can’t hurt” measure despite my being told by the head of a major trauma department that it couldn’t do anything worthwhile.)

https://www.officer.com/featur...utm_source=OFCR+Down

there’s no reason to perform chest compressions on someone whose heart is obviously beating. FWIW, I was an EMT for 12 years.

When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Hopefully they didn't do any harm.

"Bystanders" were performing CPR. Do these people even know the correct protocol?

No, CPR is not appropriate on a conscious and breathing individual.

But keep in mind two things:
1) Media reports are often innacurate.
2) That specific portion of the news report was based on a dispatch log, and those calls/logs can be confusing.

So the log might have looked something like this:
0830 Victim is conscious and breathing
0831 Bystander performing CPR

That doesn't necessarily mean they were doing CPR on a conscious victim, like the reporter decided they were. Rather, they were conscious and breathing, and then shortly therafter they weren't, and thus CPR was started.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
"Bystanders" were performing CPR. Do these people even know the correct protocol?

Considering they were shot during a training class at an law enforcement academy firing range, one could assume the person doing CPR was another officer/instructor, not just Joe The Plumber who happened to be walking by.

Academies typically aren't open to the public, and especially not the firing ranges.

So, no one knows the actual details. Ok.

Either the report is incorrect or someone was in shock.

My guess would be that 911 asked if he was concious and were told yes. The he went into cardiac arrest and cpr was started.

Regardless of the circumstances, its very sad. RIP Brother!

I used to be an EMT (NYS 234XXX), CPR was never for a victim/patient with a pulse. I've had Red Cross, American Heart, SSI, etc. CPR cards over the years and CPR on a patient with a pulse was never taught. Nor is it taught in SSI's React Right (first aid/CPR for divers) or the Army's Combat Life Saver (TCCC). I'm due to recert, so I'll keep an ear open.

There might be something above my level of training where you do compressions on a conscious patient, but I'd defer to Paramedics or other specialists on that.

I read the article and it indicated that the officer was shot in the chest. I definitely wouldn't do CPR on a patient with a pulse in that case, for fear of causing additional injury. If the pulse stopped, then I'd start CPR, because lack of pulse is a higher priority than internal bleeding/penetrating injury.

That's simply an example of doing it wrong.

CPR is an emergency means of circulating oxygenated blood throughout the body when the body isn't accomplishing that on it's own. If they're breathing on their own, and their heart is beating, squeezing them isn't going to be productive at all. Not only will it be unproductive, but you're pretty much guaranteed to cause injury. Real CPR is freaking brutal, and I hope I'm never subjected to it, especially unnecessarily.

ETA: I'll bet Rogue's analysis of the incident is accurate. The victim was likely initially conscious and breathing, then went into cardiac arrest and CPR was started. The dispatch log may have been out of sequence or the timestamps might be off a bit...sometimes when you're doing work, updating dispatch takes a back seat to what's right in front of you. Or dispatch may have been busy getting EMS started and entered the notes out of order. There are a lot of plausible explanations.

Thanks for the responses.
I hadn’t considered whether the report was wrong (should have, of course as being very likely), but I have seen many other reports of CPR being performed on gunshot victims, and so it didn’t seem impossible.

As I mentioned, when I attended a trauma class some years ago that was concentrating on stopping bleeding I specifically asked about CPR on someone whose heart had stopped due to having bled out. The physician who was identified as the head of a major hospital trauma section seemed to be hesitant at first to answer my question, but then said it wouldn’t do any good.

If the report is accurate, that individual had a terrible day. Good luck convincing the victim his classmates weren't trying to kill him! First they shot him, then they broke his chest cartilage and tried to get his heart out of rhythm.

I was taught this simple rule "YOU ONLY DO CPR ON A DEAD BODY". Meaning only if the patient has no pulse and is not breathing.

For drowning victims that still have a pulse, you perform artificial respiration only. NO chest compressions.

CPR can disrupt the function of a beating heart. But most TV shows get this stuff wrong and that's what most people believe...

I took vote that the report isn't a wholly accurate relation of what transpired....

As a correctional officer I can attest that the staff likely knows how and when to do CPR... We do at my facility and we train on it annually... and unfortunately we perform it fairly frequenty (and increasingly so).

The real reason, I comment, though, is to say that perhaps it did happen that way and somebody just stopped thinking clearly. Several years back we (as in the officers) had to physically prevent the on-duty RN in our facility from starting CPR on someone who clearly didn't need it... again, an RN. He was panicked and defaulted on trying to do chest compressions on a person who clearly had a pulse.

Sometimes people aren't great at things they are supposed to be good at.

quote:

Why CPR on a conscious gunshot victim?

To make the victim bleed out?

Gun shot wound to the chest where the heart is located and they performed CPR? Never mind the person was conscious, how about the fact that you're manually pumping the heart that's pushing the blood?

"Hey, there's a gun shot wound in his chest!"

"Let's make sure his heart is pumping."

I would hope instead that someone was trying to plug the hole and someone just mistook that as CPR.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
So, no one knows the actual details. Ok.

When has that ever stopped us before, doc?

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
When has that ever stopped us before, doc?

I don't take kindly to this kind of remark about this forum, and this is not the first time I've seen this kind of thing from you.

I make a genuine effort to keep the conversation objective in this forum, and this kind of remark shits all over those efforts.

And even though you said "us", you don't really mean to include yourself, and don't think for a second that I don't know that.

What it comes down to is that anyone who expresses this "above it all" cynical and critical attitude about the tenor of this forum is going to hear from me. It is not a fair assessment of this forum. In my estimation, judging this forum to be something like what you described is so far off the mark, that it says much about you, and little about this place.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
As I mentioned, when I attended a trauma class some years ago that was concentrating on stopping bleeding I specifically asked about CPR on someone whose heart had stopped due to having bled out. The physician who was identified as the head of a major hospital trauma section seemed to be hesitant at first to answer my question, but then said it wouldn’t do any good.

But you do it anyway! CPR is to give someone a chance for their brain to get oxygen/blood flow.
You don’t know how bad the injuries are, (that’s for the trauma doc), you just do it - if they DON’T have a pulse.