I wanted to share a story about the necessity of communication and 911 services. I lost another neighbor yesterday and he was 61 years old from a heart attack. They are an older couple from Serbia and do not speak English very well. The wife ran to another one of my neighbors houses to get help. At the time, they ran to offer their help, they also asked her if she has already called 911. She indicated that she did in fact call 911 and they began CPR on the gentleman.
After 10 minutes of performing CPR, they were getting very tired and wondered where the emergency team was and decided to call themselves again. In fact, the 911 Operator indicated that they did not get a call for help. They asked for help and within 5 minutes the emergency team arrived. Unfortunately, the gentleman was pronounced dead when they arrived but there are two things that can be learned from this situation.
If you find a situation where there is an emergency, call 911. It appears in the event of an emergency, people involved all assume that someone else called. There is nothing wrong with calling 911 several times for the same emergency and the 911 Operator will indicate that someone has already called in. Better to be safe than sorry. As CPR certified myself, one of the things were learn is to point one person out and tell them to call 911 and not to just scream out and say, “Someone call 911.” Make sure you tell one specific person.
Secondly, it is extremely important that you and your family members, even children, are aware how to perform CPR. About.com provides step by step instructions on how to perform CPR and it really can save someones life in an emergency situation. You can find that information here http://firstaid.about.com/od/cpr/ht/06_cpr.htm.
Do you have a story of how CPR saved someones life?