Our Lips Are Sealed

I have been rolling this story around in my head for a little over a week. Last week the American Heart Association said that just using your hands only for CPR will be sufficient until help arrives. This consists of rapid, deep presses on the victim’s chest without the standard mouth-to-mouth breathing for cardiac arrest. What I have been trying to wrap my brain around for the last ten days is this quote from the Associated Press story: "Experts hope bystanders will now be more willing to jump in and help if they see someone suddenly collapse. Hands-only CPR is simpler and easier to remember and removes a big barrier for people skittish about the mouth-to-mouth breathing". Do people really think this way in an emergency? Well dear I would have saved the man, but he ordered the garlic linguine so mouth-to-mouth was out of the question. I confess that I have always wanted to learn CPR but like so many other things, never got around to it. While I do not necessarily relish the fact of wrapping my lips around most strangers, mouth-to-mouth was not a factor for me in the past, nor would it's absence from the technique motivate me more in the present. Are we really that superficial? What's next, the new Heimlich Maneuver? You don't actually touch the person. You just stand close by and shout words of encouragement.


I included a Link To The Story Here. Check out the guy's faces in the AP photo. The caption should have been: Glad I did not have to suck face with that guy!