What They Don't Teach You at CPR Training

It was exciting day at the YMCA yesterday.  I volunteered to substitute teach an early yoga class yesterday, and it turned out to be quite an adventure.

As I was setting up for class, I hear someone yell from the main exercise equipment room: HELP! CALL 911!!  I ran out of the yoga studio, being the only YMCA staff upstairs at the time, to see what was happening.  A man had a heart attack on the elliptical machine, was not breathing and had no heartbeat.  If ever there was a time and place to have a heart attack, this was it.  Beside him on an elliptical machine was Francis, an RN in the cardiac unit of a local hospital.  She was the one yelling for help.  She caught this man as he fell from the machine (even though she is only about 5 feet tall), and she was performing CPR.  The Y has a automatic defibrillator, and Frances knew just what to do.  The man had to be shocked to get his heart beating.  I knew she was tired from performing CPR for the last 3 or 4 minutes, so I told Francis I could take over CPR (even though I had never done it before outside of my training class).  I knew she couldn't go on forever.  I bent down to start CPR, and the man jerked to life, grabbing me by both arms and scaring me to death.  Francis was cool as a cucumber, reassuring the man that we were there to help.  What would you be thinking if you woke up, adrenaline pumping, with a strange woman pressing on your chest?  I was amazed that this man who was quite literally dead a few moments ago, was coherent enough to answer Francis' questions.  He knew where he was.  He had no idea he had just been shocked or needed CPR.  He thought he fell off the elliptical machine.  The paramedics arrived to take him to the hospital, and Francis and I headed into the yoga studio for class. 

Francis is a hero, but she will deny it.  Thank heavens the YMCA has an automatic defibrillator, and when I glanced at it this morning hanging on the wall I didn't take it for granted.  Most other mornings I wouldn't have thought twice about it.  What I learned yesterday is that no amount of CPR training can prepare you for the real thing.  Francis said she does this, "all the time."  She was calm, collected, and reassuring.  I looked calm on the outside, but I was freaking out on the inside.   I hope to never have to perform CPR, but if I do I want to be Francis.  I am so grateful that she was there to help this man. For her, it was nothing.  For me, it was both scary and uplifting.