Public access defibrillators

Blimey! It might be difficult to assess how much pressure to exert with one's foot if you hadn't had training though.

Firstly I've not heard that, secondly I can't stand on one leg without wobbling.......

We used to have very detailed training sessions about CPR; however, at the last one the man who gave it said thatmost people were too scared to do anything or sort of knew what to do but didn't because they couldn't quite remember how long to wait between pushes etc. So he just said, get someone to call 999 and just pump away as hard as you can because if you do nothing the patient will die anyway and you might just give them enough time for the ambulance to arrive and save them. Anything is better than doing nothing.

Absolutely Tegan, far better than nothing

I am like loopylou I have problems standing on two feet, one would be impossible unless I had a Zimmer frame and that would defeat the object of the exercise. I could give verbal instructions which I suppose would be some help.

I have found that people do not always listen. I was close to a man who fell flat on his face in the street having tripped. He was around 60 I would have thought. I wanted him to stay put until injuries could be assessed and he could get his breath back but about 3 people dragged him up on his feet and he was still dazed. Helping when one knows what one is doing does not always work.

I think they are great, they are easy to use, they have really good instructions and do not shock if it is not a shockable rhythm.

We live an hour from the local A&E, we would love them here.

Charleygirl, I would have made them listen and not get him up, but I am a bit scary at times!

We have a defibrillator at the football club in our village, which is great though I have often wondered how long it would take to find someone to open the club if it was closed. We also have another in a phone box which doubles as a book exchange at the other end of the village. However it is not near any buildings except a pub and a garage along the road. I don't think many know that it is there!

As for CPR, I have had first aid training in the past but could never remember the sequence of numbers. I think the 'Stayin' Alive' advert by Vinnie Jones really helped me not to stress too much about this. As others have said, 'Doing something is better than doing nothing'!

I don't agree that doing something is always better than doing nothing because I don't agree that preventing natural death is always better than allowing it. I realise this is probably an out on a limb view but it is genuinely what I think. Death is part of life as I see it, part of the recycling of star dust of which we are made.

The personal and emotional side of this issue is, of course, separate from what I've said above but what I've said above is a deeply held belief of mine.

In practical terms what I'm saying amounts to the fact that I don't think it is wrong to do nothing other than calling for help, so I would never blame anyone who didn't do something like CPR.

Have to disagree, but politely!

I know two people, close to me, who are alive and well (well as in really fit and healthy now, taken up running etc) who had heart attacks in their mid 60s. One was resuscitated by a paramedic, the other by a passerby. They both had stents fitted and have never looked back.

There seems to be a belief that resuscitation only means delaying the inevitable, either death from a further heart attack or a life lived in pain and suffering. This is not usually the case these days.

I'm not arguing that "resuscitation only means delaying the inevitable", only that I don't think it is wrong not to atempt resuscitation, which is implied by the phrase "it's always better to do something rather than nothing".

Actually though, in the majority of cases, resuscitation is only delaying the inevitable if what I've been told by Heartstart trainers is correct. The percentage survival rate after CPR is, in fact, very low.

I think that failure to understand definitions can lead to false expectations of this equipment. Some people believe that a heart attack is synonymous with a cardiac arrest and that this equipment will help with all situations. PADs only work with non beating hearts, but that in itself is qualified by the type of electrical rhythm being produced by the heart. Only certain types of fibrillation can be shocked back to normal rhythms. Chances of survival are very low following an arrest and drop rapidly by the minute. Basically if you don't get CPR/PAD in under 4 mins then you have only a 40% chance of survival.

I'm with bags on this...my father had been suffering from congestive heart failure which we all knew was terminal. He arrested at home but was resuscitated by the paramedics, or rather his heart was restarted but my father had gone. He lay for 2 days in a coma, hooked up to all available machines but never again opened his eyes. He had been deprived of oxygen for too long. We sat for two dreadful days waiting for the inevitable and watching this once proud man reduced to a husk. It was simply horrendous. Sometimes resuscitation is not the best thing.

Thatbags....your words about stardust take me back to Joni Mitchell/Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young singing 'Woodstock'

katek I like that song too

There's a book by an Oxford academic about how we are all starburst, I'll find it and post the title here. Quite a nice thought.