Unconscious? Check for breathing!
The first thing taught in CPR classes, after calling 911, is to check for breathing. You get ten seconds to check for breathing, and in that time, the nervous provider has to make a decision as to whether or not the patient is breathing or not. What does that mean, what difference does it make if the person is breathing? The answer is – Everything. In an impossibly stressful situation, it is absolutely crucial to define what “breathing” means. We can not allow ourselves to be fooled by gurgling, snoring sounds, or rattles officially called agonal breaths.
The reason that a check for breaths is so important is that breathing goes hand in hand with heartbeat, or circulation. If an unconscious person is breathing properly, their heart is beating. If an unconscious person isn’t breathing properly, the heart isn’t moving blood to the brain. So, if someone is unconscious and breathing they are alive. If they are out cold and gurgling, they are essentially dead. Thats when we immediately start CPR.
There is no magic way to check for breathing. CPR Classes, taught through the American Heart Association, teach that simply looking at a persons chest and body is enough. Many of us remember in CPR classes in the past, we tilted the head, lifted the chin, and performed a “look, listen and feel”. Say goodbye to “look, listen and feel”. It wastes time, and gives us the chance to be fooled by agonal breaths, or those gasps mentioned above.
To look for breathing in an unconscious person, just look at their chest
- The only thing that counts as breathing – is breathing
- Gasps, gurgling, rattling doesn’t count
- Look at anyone in any public setting, or at home (be discreet!) and notice their breathing. Thats the only thing that counts!
So to recap, what we teach in our CPR classes is when someone is out cold, look for breathing – just look for it – no longer than 10 seconds. The only thing that counts as breathing is perfectly normal breathing. Anything other than that, means they aren’t breathing.
Here is what to do after calling 911:
- If they are breathing normally, turn them on their side
- If they are not breathing normally, start pushing on their chest really hard, really fast.
Of course there are more details to CPR, but that is the basics. You can learn here https://www.gacpr.com/openclass