The event that led to this discussion were unique and many of the points made are appropriate only to this specific event and certainly the nature of this blog influenced the context of the discussion. But this event was an outlier and should be taken as such and while the odds of survival are slim when attempting CPR if nobody does anything they are zero.

So take a class and be prepared, I hope you never have to use your new skills, but if you do the life you save may be your spouse, your child or a total stranger. Regardless of the outcome you will rest better knowing that you did everything in your power to help.

First, even in younger people, CPR done at the scene is usually not successful. Even CPR done at the hospital, with a full ICU response team, and all the drugs, and IV’s is not always successful.

Second, you’re talking about an 87 year old woman who would have very brittle, easily cracked, chest ribs, which could puncture her heart or lungs. Very dangerous, especially in someone her age.

All this is moot anyway, as it’s been reported twice now that the woman was still breathing. And it was reported by a nurse that she had a pulse too. In other words, she was unconscious. You don’t do CPR on someone who is breathing and has a pulse! Give oxygen in the ambo, yes. CPR? No. What would be the point?

And as far as the facility comments? It appears like they’re trying to throw the nurse under the bus, which is very typical of these kinds of facilities.

http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/local/x738926924/Police-probe-Glenwood-Gardens-death?utm_source=widget_63&utm_medium=latest_entries_widget&utm_campaign=synapse

Now there are articles that show the daughter ‘believed’ the mother had a DNR, and this outcome may have been for the best. However the daughter’s belief may have no basis in reality. I’d give more weight to the fact that the EMTs didn’t find a DNR than any belief with no evidence.

A sight that remains with me a decade later, and one I’d have spared her from.

My regards to a decent family raised by a decent woman, now sadly beyond us.

They state “it was our beloved mother and grandmother’s wish to die naturally and without any kind of life-prolonging intervention. Our family respects the right of all people to make their own life choices in such cases”. See http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/local/x837006764/Family-We-dont-intend-to-sue-Glenwood-Gardens .

One of the remarkable things about the family’s comments is that they are voluntarily foregoing the right to sue, simply because they knew the facility was acting in the best interest of their relative. This is the precise opposite of most stories on this blog, which involve people violating moral precepts to make a buck: here the family is doing the right thing and foregoing the cash. Why this blog implicitly seems to be second-guessing their reasonable and ethical approach is one of those enigmatic editorial decisions that I find difficult to reconcile with its nominal conservative stance.

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2013/02/physicians-tend-decline-cpr-heroic-measures.html

Withholding CPR quite probably was the right course of action.

Unfortunately plaintiffs’ lawyers have you coming and going. Apply CPR and get sued when it doesn’t work right. Withhold the CPR and get sued. What drives me nuts is the claim “if I only I new” to justify payments while people fight to be included in experiments to establish what it is to be known.

You lynch mobbers want to put down your torches and pitchforks, step back, and re-read the article MattS posted in comment 15?
The patient *didn’t want life-prolonging intervention*. That’s the definition of “DNR” although the article didn’t come right out and say it. Go ahead, Google the term “DNR order”. I’ll wait.

Now of course everyone knows that performing CPR on a patient with a DNR order would have been medically inappropriate and would have amounted to an unwanted touching which could result in criminal charges of assault and/or battery.
Ethical duty to perform CPR on a DNR patient? Manslaughter charges for allowing a patient to die peacefully? Meh. Who cares? Someone DIED, we don’t know all the facts and let’s just harangue this nurse so we can feel self-righteous! After that we can tell everybody involved to just SUE everyone else so we feel good about ourselves.

I’m betting that if the nurse performed CPR and some news report said that she didn’t do it correctly then everyone would pound their collective chests and write comments recommending that the nurse and her employer be SUED for misfeasance instead of nonfeasance … after filing reckless homicide charges against them. Maybe even elder abuse charges for good measure. Yeah!

For those of you who think every nurse should know CPR, I’ve got news for you. There are a *lot* of nurses and doctors who don’t know how to perform CPR and don’t *need* to know how to perform CPR. Administrators with medical degrees usually don’t keep up their clinical skills. Why would they?

Alleging that the nurse was an uncaring human and making Nazi references to this case? Unbelievable.

The facility in question was assisted living, not a nursing home.

Any speculation as to what may have happened after the heart attck us just that – speculation. We’ll never know what would have happened because the nurse and her supervisors let her die in a dining roon.