Brownstein: 'I owe the ones who saved me to learn' CPR

Brownstein: 'I owe the ones who saved me to learn' CPR

Lawrence Cohen figures the time has come for him to learn how to perform CPR on those in need.

It was CPR that saved Cohen’s life nearly two years ago when by quirk of fate Ilana Bank, a Montreal Children’s Hospital emergency-room physician, stumbled upon an unconscious Cohen on the floor of an N.D.G. ice-cream parlour . For over seven minutes, Bank did compressions and pounded his chest so vigorously that she broke a few of his ribs in the process. Urgences-santé personnel were to take over for another five minutes and applied AED (defibrillator) pads on him.

Having suffered a cardiac arrest, Cohen, with no discernible pulse and not breathing, was considered to have been clinically dead for over 12 minutes.

With less than a one per cent shot of survival, Cohen was somehow revived. He was to spend over a week in a coma in the hospital before coming to – and even more miraculously without having any apparent sign of brain damage.

Cohen’s neurologist was left dumbfounded: “He looked at my report in shock: ‘I can’t f—ing believe you are still alive! You should be dead!’”

Heart disease has been rampant in Cohen’s family. The audio/video technician, now 71, had a heart attack over 15 years ago and had undergone a quintuple bypass. And just this week, Cohen’s youngest son, 44, was to suffer his second heart attack and will certainly undergo further treatment.

“Now I want to be prepared to help family members and friends who, too, are susceptible to crises,” says Cohen, back at work and having resumed his regular routine. “As Dr. Bank pointed out, you don’t have to be a doctor to properly administer CPR and save someone’s life. I owe the ones who saved me to learn.”

To that end, Cohen visits Jonathan Halpert, founder of the CPR Instructor’s Network. He became a CPR instructor in 1988 while working as a swimming-pool lifeguard.

“All the lifeguards had to re-certify one year, so we hired an instructor. He came, put a mannequin on the floor and was very quick. So I said to myself I could do the same thing and make it interesting for students,” says Halpert, a certified instructor with the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Quebec.

“Some 30 years later, I’m still teaching CPR to everyone from lifeguards to medical students to doctors and nurses to the general public.”

Halpert’s instructional course lasts over three hours, entailing everything from CPR to defibrillator application to myriad other life-saving techniques.

“Lawrence’s story is a perfect example of just how important CPR training really is, because you never know when or where or to whom an emergency is going to happen,” says Halpert, who used to work as a first-responder and paramedic. “There are so many different causes of sudden cardiac arrest, be it cardiac-related or choking, suffocation, drug reaction, drowning, electrocution or an athlete taking a freaky hit to the chest ( like the Buffalo Bills’ Damar Hamlin ), but a basic CPR skill can take help take care of these life-threatening emergencies.”

While few deny the importance of learning, Halpert says statistics indicate less than 10 per cent of Montrealers are actually CPR-trained or have ever taken a course. And he laments that this figure — which includes a disproportionate number of those in the medical field — is not going up.

“My goal is to teach people to respond to emergencies as opposed to react to them. Doing CPR while waiting for responders and the ambulance, chances of survival can go from less than 10 per cent to maybe 50-50. And we could even increase that number to maybe 70 or 80 per cent, if we also happen to have an automated defibrillator on hand,” he claims.

“Defibrillators are becoming more and more common at hockey arenas, swimming pools and schools, but are not required to be in office buildings or gyms like a fire extinguisher would be. Individuals will only get one if they have been affected. It’s like getting a security system for your home. Most do it only after they’ve been robbed. Think how many more lives could be saved.”

Halpert then begins his course with Cohen.

“Part of the course includes a component of recognition of emergencies, about understanding the risk factors for heart diseases,” he tells Cohen. “The sad reality is that most people on their own can wait up to eight hours before asking for help or going to the hospital. We’re seeing strokes and heart attacks at much younger ages, because some think that can’t affect them and wait too long.”

“That’s exactly what happened the first time I had a heart attack,” Cohen affirms.

Halpert then notes that while most are aware of the term CPR, few actually know that what it stands for: cardiopulmonary resuscitation. “As our heart pumps, the blood passes the lungs, picks up that oxygen and transports that oxygen all over the body to keep it alive. If someone’s not breathing, we can do it for them. Even the oxygen we breathe out has enough oxygen to keep someone alive. If the heart’s not pumping, we can compress on their chest, on their sternum, on their breastbone to make their blood flow, to restart their heart, to revive the person and most important to maintain them.”

Cohen gets on his knees straddling a mannequin, while Halpert, also on his knees doing same, demonstrates proper compression strokes and mouth-to-mouth breathing techniques.

Halpert points out that even if there are people on site at an emergency to call for help, it could take up to six minutes for first responders from the fire department and close to nine minutes for Urgences-santé to arrive on the scene.

“Who can hold their breath for six minutes?” Halpert asks. “That’s why CPR is so important. Starting within the first few minutes can save lives. It’s not like TV, where after 10 seconds a responder gives up, saying the patient is dead.

“As long as we keep compressing, there’s hope. Even for as long as 12 minutes, as Lawrence well proved.”

For information about Jonathan Halpert’s CPR courses, visit cprnetwork.ca.