DIY Chest compressions

[Billy the Kangaroo]

<font color='#0000FF'>I was impressed by the simplicity and apparent good sense in the following chain letter -

&quot;A cardiologist says If everyone who gets this mail sends it to 10 people, you can bet that we'll save at least one life.
Read this...It could save your life !!
Let's say it's 6.15 pm 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. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the course did not 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, without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly 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 let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be 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!! &quot;

I did look on the net, this story does seem to have been around for a while, including the BBC, and is attributed to a Polish doctor.  My view is - a heart attack is one of the main factors which may finish me off, and this technique could work - and may be worth a try if I am alone when it strikes.

[Digger]

<font color='#000080'>Right. Sure. We'll, if I'm having a heart attack I'll try it, but I'm not too convinced that I'd send it to everyone in my address book just in case.

Does this cardiologist want to put his name to it? Doesn't look like it. And what do cardiologists know about chain letters?

[Dr Stevil]

Sounds like rubbish to me, and as Digger has pointed out there's no name attached which would seem like a wasted opportunity for some anonymous medic to have a major &quot;claim to fame&quot; e.g. The Heimlich Manouvre

[Billy the Kangaroo]

<font color='#0000FF'>All right, I give in, it was Tadeusz Petelenz of the Cardiological Foundation in Katowice, Poland, I didnt think it mattered a **** who it was.
Dr Petelenz told the European Society of Cardiology conference in Vienna that properly timed and performed coughs could allow the patient to maintain consciousness and even regain an effective heart beat.

Similarly I didnt realise what I thought was ggod advise, which could POSSIBLY save my, if not your lives and was unlikely to do much harm, would provoke this response.
If you dont like the suggestion, then simply ignore it.

[Adrian Kelland]

It's an interesting idea, but I wonder how many of us, including cardiologists, would be able to think about this when having the attack.

I'd rather be in this position.

Adrian

[Digger]

<font color='#000080'>Apolgies for being a bit sceptical, but I do see a lot of these sorts of thing come round on e-mail. Now there's a name to it, I might be a bit more convinced.

If we'd have had the context in which it was suggested, I'm sure you wouldn't have got that response otherwise. We were only kidding anyway. I'm sure given the situation I'd be coughing like an asthmatic after a cigar!

No offence intended.