OBACHAN'S SCRIBBLES

I attended CPR/AED training workshop this morning from 9 am to noon. Guess what. When I woke up, it was already 8:19 am and I was supposed to ride my bicycle for about 40 minutes to get to the venue. Skipping breakfast, I rode my bike halfway and took a train, and luckily, I made it on time! :D

The training was fun! I have had CPR training apx. 10 years ago when I was in Kansai, but the CPR training we had today was a little different. They said that it was updated last year. Ten years ago, I was told to find a point to push for chest compressions by sliding two fingers from the rib bones (?) , and pump 15 times. But today, we were told to push between the nipples 30 times. So I guess they updated the instruction in accordance with this.

AED training was something totally new to me. The machines we used were this, this and this. The signs and labels on the foreign machines were in English but verbal/visual instructions were dubbed in Japanese (of course). The problem was the volume of the verbal instructions… I have a minor hearing problem, and I wasn’t confident about my ability to hear and understand all the instructions when I would actually do this in a public place, like a shopping mall. With the old model I used today, there was no way to turn up the volume. Hope the problem is improved with later models.

Some of the participants were young adults, but the majority was about my parents’ age, so there were hilarious happenings. Almost everyone was confused about the name of the equipment: whether it was ADE or AED. We used dummies like this one in these photos, so two out of three participants placed AED on the spot where the sick person's legs should be. And, man, CPR was sooooooooooooooo tiring! They said “keep doing it until the ambulance comes in apx. 6 minutes.” Gosh, I was exhausted after only 2 minutes! And in real situations, it would most likely take longer than 6 minutes.

When we practiced Heimlich maneuver toward the end of the training, I was a bit concerned about my dermoid cyst twisting. But actually it was the best environment if it had to happen, because several EMTs were there in the same room and an ambulance was parked right outside.

BTW, I wonder if this is the same in Japanese communities outside Japan, but the No.1 food that is associated with Heimlich maneuver here in Japan is probably mochi (rice cakes). And the mock situation for this training is usually a grandpa/grandma choking with a big piece of mochi in his/her throat on New Year’s holidays.

It was a good training and all participants looked happy to learn something very useful. But I’m sure the majority of ojichan and obachan participants (incl. myself) will suffer from muscle ache tomorrow and/or the day after. ;P