BreakTheChain.org
|
|
Cough, CoughDate Added: June 18, 2001
This advice on how to give yourself CPR is neither endorsed by the medical community nor safe. THIS IS WORTH PASSING ON - PLEASE REMEMBER IT. Let's say it's 6:15 p.m. and you're driving home (alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job. You're really tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home, unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far. What can you do? You've been trained in CPR but the guy that taught the course neglected to tell you how to perform it on yourself.. HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, this article seemed in order. Without help, the person whose heart stops beating properly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness. However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without letting up until help arrives, or until the heart is beating normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital. Tell as many other people as possible about this, it could save their Lives! From Health Cares, Rochester General Hospital via Chapter 240's newsletter, AND THE BEAT GOES ON (reprint from The Mended Hearts, Inc. publication, Heart Response) BE A FRIEND AND PLEASE SEND THIS ARTICLE TO AS MANY FRIENDS AND FAMILY AS POSSIBLE. ViaHealth Rochester General Hospital, the cited source of this advice, firmly denies authorship AND endorsement of it: "We can find no record that an article even resembling this was produced by Rochester General Hospital within the last 20 years. Furthermore, the medical information listed in the article can not be verified by current medical literature and is in no way condoned by this hospital’s medical staff." Both Mended Hearts, Inc., a support organization for heart patients, and the American Heart Association have said that, though "cough CPR" is a real technique, it is used only in rare clinical settings, at very specific times during specific cardiac event and always under a doctor's supervision. An untrained individual attempting cough CPR on his or her own could actually turn a mild heart attack into a very serious - even deadly - one. In late 2004, this chain merged with another offering helpful advice that could help prevent another devastating medical emergency, this time in the form of three questions to detect a stroke. While slightly more applicable to Joe Public, that chain, along with this one, demonstrate why e-mail chain letters should not be relied upon for medical information. Break this chain! References: ViaHealth, American Red Cross, Snopes.com |