On Mon, 9 Apr 2007 01:59:31 -0700, "Paul" wrote:


"Capt. JG" wrote in message
...
"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 19:26:16 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

How many of you cruisers carry an automatic defibrillator onboard as
part of your emergency medical supplies?

I've heard of a few but I'm not yet among them. How much training is
required to use them correctly, and how large are they?

Virtually no training is actually required, as they "talk" you though
using it on someone. It won't shock the person unless it determines it's
needed. There is some minor danger if you're touching the person, e.g.,
you don't listen to the warning to stand clear.

You can take a CPR class throught the RX that gives you the certification,
but here in Cal (possibly elsewhere) the Good Samaritan laws protect
people who use them.

I beleive their now about $1500 and not very big at all.

So what is the prognosis for the typical defib parient? Prior to last
summer's trip from California to Hawaii and back, I discussed heart attack
care with a doctor, and he wasn't too optimistic. He told me that unless
the patient could receive prompt follow-up treatment, the odds of a
successful recovery were pretty bad. Since we were at worst many days away
from outside medical help, I didn't pursue the defib unit (and some of the
crew were old enough that it might have been warranted).

In my volunteer career as a paramedic, I've had around 60 or so cases
of cardiac arrest - rougly 40 of them were medical cases involving CPR
prior to the resuscitation attempt (I'm doing this from memory). Of
those, 4 were successful, but as I remember it, we were there within
five minutes of the event and CPR had been initiated immediately. The
other 20 or so were trauma related and most of them survived.

It's all in the timing. From what I've read, survival over CPR is
pretty spectacular and in general the use of auto defibrillators
increase the survival rate by about 30% over the old 10%.

It's pretty evident that if you can get things going quickly, the
chances or survival are good as long as you can also apply oxygen and
get the patient to higher level care in good time.

I would suspect that for ocean cruisers, it might not be beneficial
for somebody in the middle of the Atlantic or Pacific. But for your
average cruiser along the coast, medical assistance isn't that far
away and could be a big advantage in keeping somebody long enough to
be attended to at a higher level.