Emergencies In The Work Place - Know Your CPR!

Being part of the 20^th Century generation, I have been pounded with CPR, emergency preparedness and symptoms to look for in emergencies. When I found out my grandfather had not recognized the tell-tale symptoms of a heart attack my mouth almost hit the floor. While I was reeling in disbelief, I learned one of my other grandparents had actually died because they didn’t know what the signs of a heart attack were. I was dumb struck. How could anyone not know that a tingling in the arm of fingers, a throbbing chest, nausea and shortness of breath are tell-tale of some of the most dangerous heart conditions!?! These had been a mental check list of mine since 3^rd grade. Although, looking back I wonder if those show-and-tell medics were telling us knowing that many of our grandparents didn’t know and were hoping we would know the signs. It was drilled into us so much that I remember an episode where after having the wind knocked out of me during recess, I mentally ran through the symptoms of a heart attack while my best friend asked me the symptoms and I shook my head to each. The irony being, that we knew what the symptoms were at such a young age were the likelihood of any 3^rd grader having a heart attack was slim to none (back then anyways) and also that the only thing we knew to look or ask for was a heart attack!

Having the tools to be properly prepared for such incidents are rare and if you are among the few who decide to take a CPR or Life Saving certification course, the vast majority of people forget the skills soon after or do not take the training seriously. I don’t know if they are planning on having an ambulance or trained professional on hand, but I for one never wanted to be in that situation. I was reminded of that most recently when one of my co-workers started screaming in pain after his defibrillator went off. No one in the office knew he had a defibrillator and thought he was having a heart attack until he calmed down enough to tell us so. It took a minute before we were able to find our building’s address for 911 and the craziness that ensued convinced everyone we were ill-equipped to handle another scenario like that again. Yet, nothing changed. My co-worker had his defibrillator replaced and life returned to normal!?! Having done crisis management before, I had no idea such a scenario could even befall a company and then nothing would be done about it. I privately mocked my managers for not taking any initiative, but then again when the incident happened my training didn’t snap into place like it should have and I stood by watching in curiosity. I tried to console myself by saying he wasn’t having a heart attack and there wasn’t much I could have done. In reality the best thing the whole office could have done was just let him relax while the ambulance came to rush him off to his cardiologist, but the fact remained that even after knowing there was a high risk person within the office nothing changed!!!

It begs the question, what can be done to ensure that offices are prepared? I thought that at the bare minimum managers and/or supervisors should be trained in CPR so that there is always someone on hand to handle such scenarios. There also needs to be access to personnel’s medical records available so that if an employee becomes unconscious, paramedics have access to their medical information. The same is true of an employee’s emergency contacts and phone numbers. As the saying goes, prepare/plan for the worst case scenario and expect the best. Best case scenario, a company sends at least 1% of it’s employees to an emergency management course where people are taught to stay calm under pressure and they are given basic management skills for emergency situations. Sessions like this are often offered through Red Cross and other similar agencies for free, so you might as well take advantage of them. I attended a similar weekend seminar for disaster preparedness, but my company knew little about it and couldn’t have cared less. Bottom line, being it’s never too late to think about these precautions and its never too early to plan for them!!