Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Defibrillator in the common house

[Mary English (mary.english]

After 20 years as a cardiac RN at a university hospital I will strongly 
disagree with you over your statement "most often there is a warning like 
severe pain during which which a person can be encouraged to call for help".  
Men MAY have chest pain or may not and women often don't have the same symptoms 
as men.


One of the things I had to remind the new nurses and interns was NOT to ask if 
the person was in pain, but rather, were they experiencing any unusual 
sensations.  They might quickly deny pain but when questioned further their arm 
or jaw might be numb, or they might have pressure like an elephant on their 
chest  or a very tight belt around the chest.


As to the cost, how much is the life of your spouse or best friend's life worth 
even to give a 5% chance of survival.

At the very least schedule a first aid and CPR class for your group so no one 
will ever say if only after an event.


Mary English,  Wasatch Commons









________________________________
From: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l-bounces+mary.english=hsc.utah.edu [at] 
cohousing.org> on behalf of Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
cohousing.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2018 12:19:09 PM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Cc: Sharon Villines
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Defibrillator in the common house

So let's imagine a few possible scenarios:
And from all the imaginable scenarios,  you never know for sure that the AED 
was the determining factor in survival.

To summarize this reality check: Even with some of us trained in CPR, and even 
if we had a $1500 AED, circumstances would have to be just right to bring 
Person ABCDE back to life.

I forgot to mention another factor in Takoma Village not purchasing an AED is 
that we are in a city with several hospitals fairly close by. An ambulance can 
be here in less than 5 minutes. So for us the more predictably helpful plan 
would be to devise a system of alerts for calling the ambulance when people 
live alone or a housemate is travelling.

An Apple Watch has proved its value many times over.  If the wearer is 
conscious, Siri can send an email to the community or 911 very quickly. Even in 
the middle of the night, someone always seems to be online. A phone call is 
just as fast but it means guessing who might be able to arrive quickly. It’s 
one call at a time.

This conversation is about AED which are used in absolute emergencies, but most 
often there is a warning like severe pain during which a person can be 
encouraged to call for help.

Sharon
———
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC








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