In 30 years of working as a Paramedic I have seen the way we deal with cardiac events change dramatically. Long gone are the days of arriving on scene for a cardiac arrest that has been laying on the floor for six minutes before the first trained responders got on scene to begin CPR. I witnessed the introduction and proliferation of AEDs into the world, and advances in how we care for cardiac arrest patients. I was the first Paramedic at my service to use Lucas on a patient and was startled when it was doing compressions that were effective enough to wake my patient. I remember Mega-Code sessions where you were all alone and having to run an arrest in front of two or three instructors who made it as stressful as possible.
Today I teach everything from basic hands only CPR to Advanced Cardiac Life Support, I help groups and businesses obtain AED’s and provide training to businesses all across Minnesota.
I can say with absolute certainty that every cardiac arrest I have saved had people doing high quality compressions and ventilations with use of an AED prior to the arrival of EMS, those lives have been saved because of the bystanders who helped and very rarely by the interventions I do while enroute to the hospital.
Starting this week I will enter the next big chapter of my career, this week I start training instructors who can go out and train others, so that other may live, its an incredible feeling to know that much like dropping a pebble into a pond, the ripples from my classes will spread outward and lives will be saved.
If you are interested in learning life saving skills, I encourage you to go to www.korstogtraining.com to sign up for classes.