Now let's talk about the skills required for use of an AED, but the patient is a 17-year-old
teenager, they're gonna fit in with our adult level protocol when we use an AED, but this
is very common.
In fact, we've heard about it in the news a lot where you've got these kids, they're
somewhere between 14, 18 years old, they're on the court, they're on the field, and they
are healthy individuals, seemingly, and then go down in cardiac arrest.
So this is the kind of scenario that we're setting up for you, then we wanna show how
easy it is to get them the help they need in a rapid form.
So here we go: the scene is already safe, CPR has already been in progress and whether
we brought the AED or someone else brought it in, the point is it's here and it's ready
to use.
So let's go ahead and begin, when we have the AED here, the very first thing we're gonna
do is turn it on.
[AED begins instructions] So it tells us to remove the clothing.
Many times they have scissors right in the back.
It tells me to attach the pads and plug in the connectors, so I'm gonna work on that.
if I open this up, I can see exactly the way these are supposed to go, one goes here and
one goes here, just like it shows right on the pads.
Now, special note: if they're sweaty, dry them off.
If there's any kind of gel, dry it off.
If there's jewelry, it doesn't matter if they have piercings, but if they have a necklace
and it's in between these two pads, we're gonna move that jewelry just to the side so
it's not in the way of the electrical pathway.
These are actually sticking quite well so now I'm gonna go to the last step which is
plugging in the connector.
Make sure not to touch the patient, don't bump them.
OK, we allow the AED to charge.
Nobody's touching the patient, I discharge.
Now, it's important that we go straight into chest compressions, the same way we did CPR,
that 2- to 2.4-inch depth, 100 to 120 compressions per minute.
We go right over the cable, we go right over the AED pads.
We don't remove them, we don't disconnect them, we just do our compressions right over
them.
We could follow the metronome but it's not necessary; we know how to do these CPR compressions,
but we're gonna do the normal CPR.
So we're doing our 30 compressions.
After the 30 compressions, just like before, we do the head tilt, chin lift, and we give
two rescue breaths.
Going right back into the chest compressions [counts to 30], followed by two more breaths,
followed by 30 more compressions.
When it interrupts, we stand clear and let it analyze for a rhythm.
So whether it says a shock is advised, it recharges so that you can shock, or whether
it says no shock advised, we're gonna follow its promptings and go right back into whatever
it tells us to do.
We are going to continue to do this without taking anything off or turning anything off
until EMS arrives until the person revives and starts breathing normally, or somebody
equally trained or higher comes and relieves us.