CPR in practice

I hope everyone has seen the British Heart Foundation's advert with Vinnie Jones demonstrating cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR). If you haven't seen it yet, watch the YouTube video now.

What the British Heart Foundation are trying to achieve with this advert is to show that you don't need any formal qualifications in order to perform CPR, all you need is a bit of knowledge and perhaps a lot of confidence.
  
I've been a first aider for several years and have carried out CPR on a Resusci Anne more times than I care to remember. When it comes to CPR procedures I'd like to think I'm quite comfortable with what to do.
  
This is just as well as this morning I found myself in the extremely uncomfortable position of having to perform CPR for real. Not on a manikin this time, but on an elderly gentleman who had collapsed in the supermarket and stopped breathing.
  
What surprised me to begin with was how spongy the chest felt, I expected it to be more rigid. Don't get me wrong, the Resusci Anne is a fantastic training aid, but it doesn't feel anything like a real chest. What really shocked me though was the colour of the patient's face. Perhaps one day they'll produce a manikin that gradually turns a bright purple colour.
  
What no manikin will ever be able to teach you is how you are going to feel afterwards. Once the paramedics had taken the patient to hospital, it took a great deal of will power just to stop myself throwing up in the middle of the supermarket.
  
I don't know what the final outcome was once the paramedics had taken the patient to hospital, I probably never will know. What I do know is that if no one had performed CPR, the patient certainly would have died. I think a wee bit of nausea is a reasonable price to pay for potentially saving a life.