By Shawn Dunning

During my idealistic days in college, I became certified as a First Aid and CPR instructor for the American Red Cross, and for the last 15 years, I have volunteered to train hundreds of students.  To this day, I have no idea if any of them have ever used their skills, and, until last month, I had never administered CPR to a person in need. That has changed.

As I rode my bike to work, something caught my eye.  I could have easily missed it in my haste to get to the office, but my peripheral vision picked up the anomaly--a man was lying on the sidewalk and two bystanders were hovering over him.  I immediately approached and asked if they needed any help.

One man said, "No, we've got it covered; we called 911."  Yet, no one was rendering aid to the unresponsive man.  I glanced down and noticed his face was ashen, lips blue.  I identified myself as a CPR instructor and went to work.

 To assess the situation, I quickly asked what happened, and the women responded that the man had just collapsed.  I verified that 911 had been called and told the patient was unresponsive.  I didn't see any obvious signs of trauma or any apparent environmental danger, so I approached the patient.  This all took about 5 seconds.

I knelt down and vigorously tapped and shook his shoulder while shouting, "Sir, are you okay?"  There was no response, but to confuse matters, he appeared to be gasping and moaning.  I made sure he had an airway with a head tilt/chin lift.  There was virtually no chest rise and his breathing was not steady.  I knew that this didn't "count" as breathing. 

I thought I might have a pocket mask in my backpack, but I didn't want to prolong circulation any more than necessary.  So, after briefly checking for--and not discovering--a pulse, I bared his chest and administered 30 compressions.  From the moment I knelt down beside him to the point of beginning compressions was no more than 10 seconds.

After the first round of compressions, I reached for my backpack, got out my pocket mask, and quickly put it in place.  The mask had a one-way tube that had to be inserted over the tongue.  Though the patient's jaw was tight, I got the tube in place and gave two full breaths.  I felt the air go in easily and the chest rose accordingly.  By this time, a bystander was monitoring for a pulse on the patient's wrist while I gave breaths, so I continued with CPR at the rate of 30 compressions to 2 breaths for several minutes until the professionals arrived and took over.

The medic team immediately placed an AED. After administering the shock, they continued compression and air (via bag valve mask).  About one minute after the first shock, the patient spontaneously began breathing.  They put him in the ambulance and took off. A few hours later, anxious and curious, I called the ER at George Washington Hospital and identified myself as someone who administered CPR to a man on the street that morning.  The women interrupted me, and placed me on hold for a moment.  She got back on the line and said, "He's upstairs.  He's stable.  You did good."  I thanked her and hung up.  For the first time since the incident, I was overcome by emotions.