Yes! Way to go, John Mark! My Community Health prof would be so proud!
Dan | Homepage | 04.19.05 - 8:13 am | #

Important Clarifications:

1) While the AED is your most effective life-saver, it must be used in conjunction with CPR. CPR supplies the brain with oxygen until your second line of interventions is available. In other words, if you don't provide CPR, your patient's brain could die while you run for the AED.

2) While the AED is simple enough for a child to operate, people must be trained by knowledgeable personnel to be able to use it. Since the AED delivers high-voltage shocks to the patient, if you are touching the patient when the AED delivers the shock, it could put YOU in cardiac arrest.
Dan | Homepage | 04.19.05 - 8:41 am | #

Ahh... good clarifications, Dan.
John Mark | Homepage | 04.19.05 - 12:52 pm | #

I know how to give yourself CPR in case of a sudden heart attack when you're alone. I'm not certified though, nor have I ever practiced - I just know the theory.
Matt | Homepage | 04.19.05 - 6:28 pm | #

That's interesting... How?
John Mark | Homepage | 04.19.05 - 9:55 pm | #

Every time you cough, your heart contracts. So...you're supposed to cough (with reasonable force...not hacking though) until help arrives every two seconds. For some reason I'm thinking your supposed to hold your cough a little too.
Matt | Homepage | 04.20.05 - 7:14 am | #

Dan - truth or fiction?
John Mark | Homepage | 04.20.05 - 2:14 pm | #

Dan told me at lunch that it is truth, though he can't say so, becuase of liability issues...being a nurse and all.
Matt | Homepage | 04.20.05 - 3:30 pm | #

So, teach everybody to cough and save a church $1500!

Actually, I really don't like it when nurses or doctors tell me to cough.
Roy | 04.20.05 - 7:52 pm | #

I've heard nothing that validates Matt's claims, and I can't fathom how it is physiologically possible for a cough to force your heart to contract. However....I am "just a nurse" and I'm not up on all the latest research (or primetime medical dramas).
Dan | Homepage | 04.20.05 - 11:01 pm | #

You can give yourself the Heimlich maneuver though (on the back of a chair), until it works or you pass out trying.
Dan | Homepage | 04.20.05 - 11:03 pm | #

Roy needs a gravatar.
John Mark | Homepage | 04.21.05 - 12:44 pm | #

That's right - you are just a nurse. The actors on my tv show play actual doctors.
Matt | Homepage | 04.21.05 - 2:09 pm | #

I prefer anonymity. I'm much handsomer that way.
Roy | 04.21.05 - 9:46 pm | #

But you could have a gravatar of some model you cut out of a Target ad.
John Mark | Homepage | 04.21.05 - 10:26 pm | #

Hey! The gravatar is retro!
Roy | 04.24.05 - 7:46 pm | #