It's... only Wednesday?

[da]

The week so far has been fairly full.

Today I went for an all-day Emergency First Aid training. I'm curious how many of my friends are CPR trained? Either current, or lapsed? (I'd also be curious how many of you have ever used it? I know at least two of my friends have. What's that like for you?)

My training was led by an ex-US Marine, ex-firefighter, with just about as much authority on the subject as I might hope for. It was a really intense day. Hopefully I'll sleep OK tonight; I've been to the gym and had a strong drink, which I think has helped calm my mind down. :)

I wonder how the day's tone would be different with, dunno, a more "boring" instructor. He shared a lot of his macabre sense of humor. One story; he was working as an EMT in Atlanta at the Braves stadium for a big home game. They got the call about a man who collapsed; they got within a few hundred yards and started humping their equipment through the press of crowds, many clustered around the guy who was down. As they got there, they discovered two "good ol' boys" (as he called them) running a jumper-cable from their big truck, engine racing, just about to make contact with the old guy on the ground. Fortunately, they got there just in time; turns out he fainted from the heat, his heart was beating fine, though it wouldn't have if the two dudes had worked faster!

A few things I learned:

1) if someone feels faint, *don't* tell them to put their head between their knees, unless you're holding on to the back of their shirt. If they go unconscious, their head will hit the ground and then they might have spine/head trauma to deal with as well. According to Ian, slouching with head back is perfectly fine.

2) AED's, Automated External Defibrillators, are some really cool technology. The modern ones are designed so anybody can use them (though you can get going a bit faster if you're trained). They will talk to the user, flashing lights to tell them what to connect to the patient and where. They will detect a weak heartbeat and if necessary, send the shock to try and restart their pulse; but if they don't detect any pulse, they will guide the user through CPR steps, including sounding out the beat for chest-compressions.

3) The "First Aid Recovery Position" is the same as it was when I learned it at Cornell when I volunteered at Slope Day, a booze-fest on the last day of classes. Preventing someone from choking on their own vomit is timeless.

On that classy note, what about yesterday?...

Yesterday was the annual campus conference. I gave a talk, on one cross-campus collaboration project I'm involved with. It went ok; the best part was finishing and having lots of leftover time for conversations with people. I saw good talks and so-so talks, and ended on a great note with some students very energetically talking through some mobile dev projects they are working on in spare time. They made me, personally, feel completely not-cutting-edge, but that's fine. Sometimes other people get to be the sharpest knives in the drawer.

After work, I had a fairly difficult phone-call to make relating to some stuff that happened after Quaker Meeting on Sunday, but you know what? It was fine; and it was entirely the right thing to do, and I felt supported by a bunch of people in the Meeting in the process.

Just beforehand, I shoveled snow for the first time this year, and a bunny came over from a few lawns over and sat just across the street, sort of under a bush, watching me the entire time. It was still keeping watch when I went inside. And it helped me stay grounded as I went inside to make that phone-call.

And in the evening, dan took me out for all-you-can-eat tapas, using the thank-you gift-certificate from the talk that he gave yesterday, to a bunch of high-schoolers. (Next year? I think the school will try and avoid having a CS conference for some hundred students on the very same day that most of the technical staff are at their own conference. The combination went OK, but that took a lot of work from lots of dedicated people!)

Comments

[zalena.livejournal.com]

Me. Lapsed. Never used it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

*blinks* There exist all-you-can-eat tapas places? That sounds awesome!

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

It was only OK tapas, though, sadly. The mushroom poutine was a good attempt, since it was supposed to have meat gravy and we told them we didn't eat red meat and they did accommodate that well... but the fries were too heavy, the cheese curds weren't at all melted, the portion was way too large, and the gravy was the same as we'd just had in four other dishes!

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

That sounds unfortunate. Although every time I have tried an all-you-can-eat sushi place the food has been mediocre. Alas. It was a nice dream for me for a few hours...

[jeanne-d-arc.livejournal.com]

I've been CPR certified for several years but never needed to use it.

[newdoorknobs.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Me, lapsed, never used it. My son, current, never used it. (His Scout troop is really big into making sure all the kids are CPR trained.)

The best factoid I heard about CPR recently is that the tune "Stayin' Alive" is at just the right rhythm for how you're supposed to do chest compressions. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27221281/

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Oh! I forgot to add that to the things I learned! :)

Also, "Another One Bites the Dust," which is possibly a less appropriate song to sing along to.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

Please don't make me laugh like that when I am at work. ;-)

(okay, do, it feels good...)