bloody hell, that's god damned impressive!!

Can i have one just to play with, i bet it squeezes oranges and lemons quite well too!!

confused by your comment that you cannot support it being tested on pigs???

surely all the medicines that you use, and many of the other techniques used in medical treatment of your patients were tested or validated on animals - whats the alternative? test partially developed resuscitation devices on someones granny after she's had a heart attack?

I can accept it, I just can't support it. I get queasy about the whole 'animal testing' thing, blame it on my hippy past.

Also pigs are as smart as dogs. Would you like to kill, and then revive Rover, only to then cut him open to see what damage has been done?

There are ways of testing these things without using animals - the LAS at the moment are undertaking some research concenring CPR along with a Seattle hospital (I think it's a Seattle hospital), which is using patients as 'test subjects'. Obviously it's all been cleared by an ethics committee.

Dogs actually protest much less at such treatment than pigs. I can't remember who the author was, but I remember reading a report that a scientific institution had given up doing vivisection experiments on pigs because thy made too much fuss and went back to dogs, which accepted their lot quite calmly and placidly even whilst the scientists were cutting them open on the table.

The thing is, pig hearts are actually very similar to human hearts; so if human test subjects aren't available it makes sense to a certain extent to use pigs; I like it no more than you do however.

£6k seems very reasonable to me for such a sophisticated bit of kit that enables you to concentrate on other important things at the same time. How could such a request be refused? (Don't answer that, we know...). Still, I think it would be a terrific one off cost for a great investment that could be such an asset. Put in a bid now! Or maybe one will come up on ebay... ;-)

Because of insomnia I stumbled upon your blog and read most of your posts. Now I more awake than before and simply amazed.
Thanks Tom, take care

Because of insomnia I stumbled upon your blog and read most of your posts. Now I more awake than before and simply amazed.
Thanks Tom, take care

Stevi

It's an amazing piece of kit - all vehicles here in Staffs have one on board now, combined with the Res-Q-Pod: spot on!

Oooooh...

Tell me more...

Strangley enough, I met someone who was selling thiese and he mentioned their supply to Staffs.
Apparentyl they are "quite good" although some of the evidence is still being looked at - they have been "live" in Sweden for a while.

One story told (true ?) was of a patient with it connected who was showing asystole on the defib, but the quality of the CPR delivered was enought to return them to a concious state - which then brings in some other interesting ethical problems (like if it does perform this well, when do you stop ?)

It was from a saleman (& a friend) so I'm inclined to believe him. Running flat out the defive gets through >40 litres/min so your o2 cylinders don't last long........

Patients recovering from being flat lined have said some of the damndest things when oxygenated blud takes hold, I have witnessed a case back in '70/71 where the bloke gave a string of instruction in basic terms to let him go to the other side. The Crash cart team had other instructions and as he had returned to oblivion, they gave him succesfully a few more jewels [ JOULES] of energy that that keep him around to entertain the staff. dungbeetle

P.S URL: I only have an email address and 12 numerals with 3 ascii hex 2E imbedded so how do I sign up, as I be an old timer that only remembers 300 bawd, none of this megablah

Send me an email and I'll sort out an account for you.

You mean to say you want *another* heavy piece of kit to lug to the patient?

Must admit, batsgirl does have a point ... Picture the scene:

RRU comes racing round the corner, lights and sirens going. Stops outside a block of flat, with an elderly woman holding the door open.

WOMAN: Quick, My Bill is feeling well. He's got stabbing pain down the left side of his body and he was looking rather grey.
DRIVER: Ok Madam, how long has he been like this?
WOMAN: Oh, about 10minutes. But I came down to wait for you 5 minutes ago.
DRIVER: Ok, let me just get my equipment.

Driver goes to the back of his vehicle, and pulls bag after bag of stuff out. The Zoll goes over the shoulder, kit held in his hand, and his newest, latest piece of equipment in the other hand.

DRIVER: Can you give me a hand here please love?
WOMAN: Erm, I've got a bad back - I can't lift anything.
DRIVER: Oh crap. What floor did you say it was?
WOMAN: 6th floor. And the lift isn't working.
DRIVER: GAH!

Regards,
Nick
http://nickhough.blogspot.com/

I believe our hospital tested one of these recently. I believe survival rate was something ridiculous like 98% compared to the usual 35%. Or something.

Bloody hell. Isn't it a crime that all thats keeping people from surviving is some little anus at a desk with a row of figures going "nope, that won't fit in the budget after me and my colleagues grossly distorted salaries".

I seethe.

Anon, The guys and girls in supply and procurement in NHS hospitals arent like that. At least the ones I have met arent and I should know my mother is one of them. Each dept gets a budget and has to stick to it as close as possible as fiddling with numbers is a dodgy business and the government doesnt like different areas *borrowing* money from each other in times of need.
And considering the procurement staff can only try and buy what the dept asks them to buy it is the department to blame and not necessarily a desk person. And considering they dont set the budgets you could in theory blame the governement for setting up budgets like they do.

Perdysha
p.s. I like your blog Reynolds

Fairynuff. I think I slipped into Daily Mail mode for that post... *shudder*.

Are they used in the states already?

i've actually used one of these devices on several patients now. They are a good peice of kit. it frees up another pair of hands on scene. I am suprised though that more services haven't got them

Set up a Paypal and ask us to donate in return for reading your journal :-)

ladycat via livejournal

Apropos "automated" ...
Yesterday I was driving back from the local pub with a friend when an ambulance (just blue lights without sirens) nearly crashed into us (wasn't our fault - HONEST).
A few minutes later we saw it again while it was driving around obviously looking for the right way.
Now my question: Have you actually got navigation systems?? All of you??
I've got one and I couldn't live without it anymore
I can not believe that there was an ambulance driving around, lost, and somewhere someone was dying?
I mean, it's not expensive and the best thing I've ever had

satilite navigation is fine if it takes you in the right direction. I have found on numerous occassions it trying to take me down one way streets the wrong way.

It's still largely dependent on the Ambulance Service, even though a lot of newer vehicles come with it pretty much as standard. For example, St John's purpose built Crusader (based on the Renault Master) which is also being adopted by any Ambulance Services (including my local - Shrophire Ambulance Service) comes with Sat Nav as standard.

But there again, it is only recently that all of Shropshire's older vehicles (and in some cases we're only talking about 12months here) have been upgraded to have Sat Nav.

So realistically, no 1 person can give you an answer to that question ... as it's dependent on the local Ambulance Service. And you sometimes find that it can't find the address anyway - be it that the address was passed to Control wrong, was passed to the Crew wrong, or plain isn't on the system!!

Regards,
Nick
http://nickhough.blogspot.com/

http://www.revivant.com/pages/prod_info.html

Link takes you to battery powered device that ZOLL has been pushing recently here in the US. Amazing gadgit, saw live demonstration on a manikin. The old oxygen powered "Thumpers" never seemed to catch on here. Nice (or disturbing) to know we are not alone in having to beg and plead with the bean counters (the guys that watch over the budget) for new tech that can save lives.

Now I wonder, with Auto-CPR, Auto-Ventilators, AEDs and Auto-Blood Presure cuffs how long will it be until they (bean counters) figure out how we can load patients by ourselves and cut Ambulance staffing to one.

I WANT ONE, I WANT ONE!

Seriously tho, its not the tiredness that affects me in resus (allways pleanty of people availible to have a go) and students allways need to be ussured towards the front of a resus attempt. But if its seriously more effective then surely its a must?

Never come accross it before, Every ED should have one!

You can rent these from Hi-Gear. The Irish man who flattened the tarmac on my drive used one but they're bloody noisy.

Best
Cass

Thanks....

I nearly covered my laptop with the forced expulsion of tea through my nose.

But, as a possible amusing aside, there is a bit of kit used for the same purpose which is essentially a toilet plunger.

Why?

Well there was a kid who used a toilet plunger to successfully resuscitate his mother - apparently the suction effect helps refill the heart.