Posted on 03/31/2008 7:17:03 PM PDT by neverdem
Sorry for the double post before. The experience watching my Dad die before my eyes was so devastating I still cry, almost 30 years later, thinking about it.
I did check his throat and mouth for obstructions, even pulled his false teeth out. As I said, I didn’t know CPR, was young and had never bothered, never even thought about knowing how to do it (I have had CPR classes since then).
We were in a huge building full of people (a Veteran of Foreign Wars building). My Dad asked me to go and meet some of his friends. We walked in, he introduced me to his friends, and I was facing them with Dad standing beside me. I shook hands with his friends, and noticed their shock, eyes widen. I turned around and saw my Dad was lying on the floor and had turned blue.
I immediately jumped atop him, checked his throat and mouth, took his teeth out, and pumped on his chest(it’s all a blur it happened so fast, but I guess I had seen it in movies, tried to do the right thing). I am pretty sure I even breathed in his mouth, although I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I remember no response from him, and screaming repeatedly for someone to help, while crowds of people gathered around and stared. Finally, after what seemed like hours, someone came and pushed me off and started CPR. It was too late.
The fact is, many people don’t don’t know CPR, and I’m not sure how many can remember it in a crisis when a loved one is laying in front of you dying.
It makes me feel better to think just compressing his chest, my efforts, could have made a difference. For a long time I agonized that I even did something wrong/harmful, not knowing CPR, not knowing what I was doing.
The ideal thing is for EVERYONE to know CPR (mouth and chest compressions). But that isn’t the case.
Take a CPR class or three. Use CPR in the real world on real people who are taken away in ambulances. Then revisit your little fantasy and see if you still find it so amusing.
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