Happy New Year, everyone!
Heading into 2021, we thought it would be a good idea to outline different fears that keep people from performing CPR. CPR can be a scary task, especially if you aren’t super confident about your ability to perform CPR. We wanted to let you know that you aren’t alone in these fears and talk about the 3 most common fears associated with CPR.
Fear of Hurting the Critical Person
A lot of people back away from performing CPR because they are afraid of harming the individual. Compressions are done at a depth that makes it highly likely that you will cause some sort of bone injury, but at the end of the day, there injuries are survivable. Cardiac arrest usually isn’t, but CPR increases those odds
Fear of Performing CPR Incorrectly
Doing CPR in a real-life situation for the first time can be intimidating. With most things in life, the more you are willing to do something, and the more practice you have, the more natural it will come to you. A great way to stay on top of CPR is to renew your CPR certificate.
Fear of Catching a Disease
It is possible to contract viruses through mouth-to-mouth contact with the individual, but most of the time, hands-only CPR is a great alternative for a bystander rescue situation. Just make sure you are doing the compressions in the center of the chest to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees. Another great way to prevent cross contamination is by using a face shield. You can purchase a keyring face shield to carry around with you from our website here.
According to the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation, there are more than 356,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year in the US. Out of these 356,000 people, 90% of them end up being fatal. This number could be dramatically decreased with the help of CPR.