The day that I saved a man's life
November 24,
2007
When
a colleague collapsed, Victoria Neumark tried to remember
first aid training from ten years ago
It was on a
warm spring night in Nice that I helped to save someone’s
life. “Jim’s on the ground!” I heard someone shout. In
front of a brightly-lit café, a fellow classmate from my
language school lay rigid, his arms outstretched, his head
tipped back.
I ran across the road. I had done first-aid courses in the
past, but that was ten years earlier. I had also assisted
someone with a heart attack once and knew that you were
supposed to get them into a sitting position if they were
conscious. Jim, 71, was not conscious. In the neon lights
from the café, he was a bad shade of purplish-grey, his
breath catching in his throat. A French lad of about 19 was
kneeling beside his head, frowning, touching him with his
finger-tips.“I call the ambulance,” said German Tobias and
ran into the café. I remembered about levels of
consciousness; that it is important not to let the patient
sink down, and I turned to Jim’s wife, Lindsay. She stood
immobile with terror.
“You speak to him,” I urged. “You are the best person to
reach him.” She knelt by him. “Jim, Jim, don’t leave me, I
love you,” she said. As if in response, his breath rattled
in his throat, once, twice, three times – and stopped. No
pulse, not in his wrist, or his neck. He lay still. “I
can’t find a pulse,” I said. “Don’t say that,” said
Lindsay. No sign of an ambulance, no doctor, just lots of
French people chattering and our classmates looking
shocked.
I’d learnt that we had four minutes before irreversible
brain damage and we’d lost 20 seconds. OK, so how does it
go? The numbers “15” and “2” blazed into my consciousness –
15 chest compressions, then two breaths, and it’s better to
get two people to do it. Who’s going to do it? I looked at
the French boy. He was listening for breath. Pointless, I
thought, we have had the death rattle. Ten seconds more.
I spoke, asking if anyone knew the cardio-pulmonary
resuscitation (CPR) procedure (see facing page). No answer,
but the French lad caught my eye. He half-nodded but told
me that he was worried about getting it wrong. Another 20
seconds went by. I looked at him fiercely. He hesitated.
Another 20 seconds. Oh bu**er this, I thought. I’d better
start. It must be a minute by now, less than three
before...
The
air chilled with catastrophe
I knelt down, locked my hands and began to rock them on
Jim’s sternum. One, two, three... the chest depressed just
as I remembered it doing on the Salvation Army dummy...14,
15. The French boy was still there. “Go on!” I said. I
wanted him to do the two breaths after I’d finished the 15
compressions. Still, he hesitated. I’d have to do the
breathing, too. Our heads almost collided: he was going to
help. His two breaths were too gentle to inflate the chest
but I began doing compressions again. One, two, three... up
to 15. Then the boy blew hard. The chest rose and fell
twice. It worked. We’d stopped the clock.
Again, then again, then again. I started to feel that I
could keep going indefinitely, but it was hard work. Time
stretched out and contracted. There was nothing but me and
the French boy, and Jim’s body, and counting 15 and 2, 15
and 2. Then a hiatus. After the 15, no 2. Why? The boy
called out. Jim’s chest was rising and falling by itself. I
heard Tobias say: “The ambulance is coming.” Then Jim’s
chest stilled again. No breath. We bent to our work again,
more synchronised now. After eight cycles, we stopped to
check. He was not breathing by himself.
Again we took up our positions, when a young Frenchwoman
burst through the throng. Maybe she’s a doctor, I hoped.
She tutted impatiently, gesturing to Jim’s chest as the air
from our resuscitation softly left his body, and mistakenly
claimed that he was breathing. In an instant, she turned
this big, heavy man into the recovery position and knelt
triumphantly beside him.
The air chilled with catastrophe. I could see Jim’s
unmoving ribcage. I could feel Lindsay’s anxiety. The
French boy and I looked at each other in dismay. What to
do? How could we wrest Jim back? We could flip his big,
heavy body over, but what if the woman resisted? There was
no way to give CPR now.
“Look,
you’ve died; after this, it’s all good”
Then, finally, the noise of sirens. An ambulance drew up
and paramedics leapt out. A man knelt beside Jim and,
swiftly rolling him on to his back, got an air line down
his throat and started inflating an oxygen bag. I looked at
Lindsay. “It will be all right,” I said. But I wasn’t sure.
In the long week that followed Jim lay in intensive care on
the respirator. They said there was no brain activity and
that Lindsay might have to make some “difficult decisions”.
Had I added to his suffering by my intervention? While
Lindsay and I agonised, people told me that it is useless
to give CPR with a heart attack, so I shouldn’t have
bothered. But they were wrong.
On Friday, Jim still lay inert and Lindsay drove to their
home in Beziers, in the South of France, in utter misery.
But on Saturday when she returned he squeezed her hand. The
next day he spoke. I am in touch with Lindsay and Jim and
hope to see them soon. But I do feel a little shy at our
strange intimacy. Recently, Jim visited his doctor, who
told him that his heart is better than before the attack.
The emergency-aid shocks stimulated the tissue. Jim asked
if he should be concerned about any side-effects of his new
drugs: he has to be careful of sunshine. The doctor
shrugged: “Look, you’ve died, anything after this, it’s all
good.”
How
to do CPR properly
If there is no pulse or heartbeat, cardiopulmonary
resuscitation (CPR) should be started within three minutes.
The recommended ratio of chest compressions to breaths is
now 30 to 2. For more information, www.redcrossfirstaidtraining.co.uk
1. Check breathing – open the airway; tilt the head back
and lift the chin. Look, listen and feel for normal
breathing for no more than ten seconds. If patient is not
breathing normally, call 999. 3
2. Start chest compresssions – give 30 compressions,
pressing down 4cm-5cm.
3. Pinch the patient’s nose. Place your mouth over his or
her mouth and blow for one second. Give two rescue breaths.
Continue this cycle of 30 compressions and two breaths
until help arrives. If you are unable to give rescue
breaths, give chest compressions only.
In association
with the British Red Cross redcross.org.uk/firstaid
0870 1709222
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