RE: Carrie Fisher: 1956-2016.
December 27, 2016 at 11:39 pm
(This post was last modified: December 27, 2016 at 11:45 pm by AFTT47.)
Maybe I should have opened another thread on this but this is a perfect example of why capitalism sometimes sucks.
CPR is better than nothing - but not by much. The point of it is to manually maintain some circulation thus maintaining some oxygenation of the brain until EMS people arrive. It's effectiveness is very limited. A doctor and a nurse used it on Carrie and it wasn't enough. Imagine how ineffective a layman would be. CPR is the equivalent of an American football Hail Mary pass when you're deep in your own territory, down by a touchdown with just seconds left on the clock. You throw the ball as far as you can and hope against hope that it lands in the hands of an open receiver. You only do it because there is nothing to lose and you don't have anything left. But what if you did?
Ever heard of an automatic defibrillator? They're smart versions of those machines medical professionals use to jump start a fibrillating heart and they can enable an idiot to save someone's life. Open the lid on one and you will find printed and graphical instructions on how and where to place the paddles on a suspected heart attack victim. There are simultaneous voice instructions. Once you put the paddles on, the machine gets an electrical signature of the patient's heart activity. If it is a relatively normal signature, the machine will not administer a shock. If fibrillation is detected, it will recommend a shock - both verbally and with worded instructions. The best of these even detect if there are unintended paths in the circuit like bystanders in electrical contact with the victim and warn of this. These machines will shock a fibrillating heart back into a normal rhythm - and it doesn't require a professional operator. A fucking Republican could make it work! Cost of these machines? About $2,000.00 US.
So WHY THE FUCK are automatic defibrillators not required in airplanes where you are obviously cut off from medical services before landing? The cost of these machines is trivial compared to the cost of the airplane. Why would an airline even need a government requirement to carry such equipment? You already paid out tens of millions for the airplane (over $100 million in the case of a long-hauler like Carrie Fisher was on capable of non-stop flight from London to Los Angeles). What's a paltry $2000.00 compared to that for a machine which can save a person's life?
CPR is better than nothing - but not by much. The point of it is to manually maintain some circulation thus maintaining some oxygenation of the brain until EMS people arrive. It's effectiveness is very limited. A doctor and a nurse used it on Carrie and it wasn't enough. Imagine how ineffective a layman would be. CPR is the equivalent of an American football Hail Mary pass when you're deep in your own territory, down by a touchdown with just seconds left on the clock. You throw the ball as far as you can and hope against hope that it lands in the hands of an open receiver. You only do it because there is nothing to lose and you don't have anything left. But what if you did?
Ever heard of an automatic defibrillator? They're smart versions of those machines medical professionals use to jump start a fibrillating heart and they can enable an idiot to save someone's life. Open the lid on one and you will find printed and graphical instructions on how and where to place the paddles on a suspected heart attack victim. There are simultaneous voice instructions. Once you put the paddles on, the machine gets an electrical signature of the patient's heart activity. If it is a relatively normal signature, the machine will not administer a shock. If fibrillation is detected, it will recommend a shock - both verbally and with worded instructions. The best of these even detect if there are unintended paths in the circuit like bystanders in electrical contact with the victim and warn of this. These machines will shock a fibrillating heart back into a normal rhythm - and it doesn't require a professional operator. A fucking Republican could make it work! Cost of these machines? About $2,000.00 US.
So WHY THE FUCK are automatic defibrillators not required in airplanes where you are obviously cut off from medical services before landing? The cost of these machines is trivial compared to the cost of the airplane. Why would an airline even need a government requirement to carry such equipment? You already paid out tens of millions for the airplane (over $100 million in the case of a long-hauler like Carrie Fisher was on capable of non-stop flight from London to Los Angeles). What's a paltry $2000.00 compared to that for a machine which can save a person's life?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein