Two Melbourne first-aid trainers are fixing the resuscitation gender gap and teaching people how to do chest compressions and use defibrillators on female mannequins.
Gwyn Nichols and Leon Landau have added fake breasts and bras to training dummies – which traditionally have a male body shape – to give more women a fighting chance after a cardiac arrest.
Studies from around the world have consistently shown that women are less likely to receive life-saving emergency treatment when they suddenly become unconscious in the community.
Gwyn and Leon’s dummies – which they’ve named Stacey and Britney – have so far been used to train more than 6500 people.
“Women have a 30 per cent less chance of surviving a cardiac arrest and it’s usually because of things we can overcome,” Gwyn said.
“It can be because people are hesitant to touch a woman, or women generally wear more layers than men. Britney and Stacey have been at every course we’ve ever done. They wear bras and t-shirts and we get people to actually cut them off. We go through about 40 bras every week.”
Gwyn and Leon joined forces almost two years ago to address the gaps in knowledge and delay in responses when people see a medical emergency.
Their charity, Community First Responders Australia, aims to empower people to recognise emergencies and provide immediate life-saving care until professional help arrives.
Cardiac arrests – when the heart stop beating, or stops beating effectively, for a wide range of reasons (outlined below) – are a major health issue worldwide with very low survival rates.
That’s because it is vital patients receive good quality chest compressions and defibrillation within the first few minutes – which is often before emergency services arrive.
Every year in Australia, about 26,000 people have out-of-hospital cardiac arrests – that’s 70 a day – and only about 12 per cent survive.
Leon said most cardiac arrests happen in people’s homes, but delayed responses lead to poor outcomes. Communities with English as a second language are even more vulnerable.
“There’s a general attitude of, ‘we’re going to wait for the experts to come’, and that’s a death sentence. We need to change that attitude and move towards empowerment,” he said.
“Those first four minutes are absolutely critical to the viability of the patient. If you don’t do anything in those first few minutes, they’ve got a 5% chance of survival.
“If you start CPR within the first 2-3 minutes, and that’s the main thing, they have a 60% chance of survival. If you use a defibrillator and shock the heart within the first 2-3 minutes, the chance of survival goes over 75%.”
One of Gwyn and Leon’s boldest initiatives has been raising almost $100,000 to put 31 defibrillators in outdoor public spaces across Melbourne and then training local communities to use them.
Their “Shock Stations” are at places like beaches and on people’s fences, so they are accessible 24 hours a day with teams of people close by who know how to use them.
Each Shock Station™ is linked to Ambulance Victoria and the GoodSAM app, so when someone calls 000 an immediate community response can be activated before paramedics arrive.
Gwyn said most other defibrillators are in places that are only accessible during opening hours, such as shopping centres or sporting clubs, and they aren’t necessarily linked to 000.
“Last year, there was a cardiac arrest and a heart attack at Williamstown Beach within a very short space of time and there’s a defib at the kiosk, but when the kiosk isn’t open and the lifeguards aren’t there, it isn’t available,” she said.
“If you look at the Ambulance Victoria map of where all the defibs are, there was no defib between Brighton and St Kilda along the foreshore at all. Elwood Lifesavers have a defib, but if something happens – a drowning or a cardiac arrest – when they’re not there, there’s no defib that can be accessed if someone needs it.”
Gwyn and Leon have fixed that and installed Shock Stations at both ends of Elwood Beach, one of which was sponsored by a local builder who generously offered to install all 31 of their Shock Stations, which include trauma scissors to cut off clothing. To protect against vandalism, 000 staff provide codes to access them.
Leon said some of the most rewarding work they’ve done has been with communities from non-English speaking backgrounds.
“The first time we did a training course with an interpreter and Mandarin speakers, we thought we’d get 5 or 6 people if we’re lucky. We got 80 people and they were so engaged and so hungry to learn,” Leon said.
“We give them the tools to accurately give a location and really quickly get the message across that the patient is not awake and not breathing,” he said.
“To initiate a cardiac arrest response, all you need to say is ‘not awake, not breathing’, but they have to know how to say that in English.
“We train them in how to call 000, then we train them in CPR and defibrillation. It’s taking an emergency that happens outside the healthcare environment and empowering people to take those first steps. You can take a patient from no hope to probable survival by just doing a few simple things.”
HEART ATTACK v CARDIAC ARREST
- A heart attack and a cardiac arrest are different things, but a heart attack can go on to cause a cardiac arrest.
- In simple terms, a heart attack is a plumbing problem, while a cardiac arrest is an electrical problem.
- A heart attack occurs when the arteries that supply blood to the heart become narrowed or blocked. This means that less blood – and therefore less oxygen – is delivered to the heart muscle and it becomes damaged and dies. As the heart muscle dies, it stops being able to effectively pump blood to the rest of the body.
- Common symptoms of a heart attack are: pain and tightness in the chest; pain that spreads to the arm, jaw, neck and back; trouble breathing; feeling faint; nausea and anxiety.
- A cardiac arrest occurs when the electrical signals that tell the heart when to contract (pump blood) and relax (fill with blood) malfunction. This causes the heart to stop beating, or stop beating effectively.
- A person having a cardiac arrest will suddenly fall unconscious, have no pulse and stop breathing.
- Early CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, or chest compressions) and early defibrillation (shock therapy) are essential to surviving a cardiac arrest. Death can happen within minutes because vital organs are not getting enough oxygen.
- Heart diseases, such as heart attacks, are the most common cause of cardiac arrest, but they can also be caused by non-cardiac issues, known as the 4 Hs and 4 Ts.
- The 4 Hs: hypoxia (lack of oxygen), hypovolemia (loss of blood/fluid volume), hypo/hyperthermia (low or high body temperature), and hypo/hyperkalaemia (low or high potassium levels).
- The 4 Ts: toxins (drugs/poisons); tension pneumothorax (build-up of air around lungs), tamponade (build-up of fluid around heart), thrombosis (blood clot in heart or lungs).
MORE INFORMATION:
Community First Responders Australia: Home – Community First Responders Australia
GoodSAM app: GoodSAM
Heart Research Australia: Cardiac Arrest: Every second counts – Heart Research Australia
Heart Foundation: Heart attack vs cardiac arrest – know the difference | Heart Foundation
Reversible causes of cardiac arrest: Hs and Ts: 8 Reversible Causes of Cardiac Arrest – Heart Start CPR
