*To protect patient confidentiality, parts of this story have been changed.

    Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) gives a person the ability to bestow the gift of life using their hands and the air they breathe. It buys time when a matter of minutes literally can mean the difference between life and death. CPR, if performed properly and promptly, can help victims survive to receive treatment with more advanced medical techniques in an emergency.
    Some may argue that learning CPR might be a waste of time. They may figure the percentage of actually performing it are small. They are probably correct. Many people with CPR training have never had an occasion to use it. Another reason may be that administering CPR does not necessarily guarantee a happy ending. This unfortunately is also true. Nonetheless, having the knowledge in a medical emergency when time is of the essence is crucial. Life is full of unexpected and sometimes unpleasant surprises such as sudden death. The realization that it can be reversed by any of us, anywhere, using only our lungs, hands and our brains is astonishing!
    It must be made clear, however, that while providing early CPR to a victim is critical, the EMS system must be contacted quickly in order to ensure more advanced care if the person has a chance to survive. This is called the "Chain of Survival" in which this sequence is followed: early activation of the 911 system, early CPR, early defibrillation, and early advance medical care.
    One October a young couple learned this lesson the hardest way possible. My weekday morning was shattered by the familar tones of my volunteer fire department . I stood motionlessly as I listened intently for the dispatch. "Station 34: Medical call, respond to a eight month old infant, pulseless and apneic".
    I let my breathe out slowly in horror. "Oh no!" I  shakily thought. I raced to my truck, praying I would not be working the call alone. Infant CPR is a scary thought. Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT’s) are trained to perform it skillfully and effortlessly on an infant mannequin once a year during CPR recertification. Actually working a code on an infant is rare. Children don’t die from cardiac arrest, they are born with healthy hearts. Children die from respiratory failure. This would be my first time performing CPR on a live infant. Dead infant, I corrected myself. Pulseless and apneic means clinically dead.
    Mentally, I started calculating the minutes. It would take at least five to get to the ambulance, and I estimated eight to reach the address providing the other drivers on the highway would yield to my lights and sirens. One to two extra to retrieve my equipment and reach my patients side. "It’s not fast enough!" flashed through my mind, unless CPR was in progress. Fifteen minutes without oxygen would not help the baby’s tiny brain. Brains are a greedy beast, demanding large amounts of glucose and oxygen to satisfy a never ending hunger. Four to six minutes without oxygen and brain cells begin to die that can never be replaced. I wondered what the baby’s "down time" was before being discovered?
    I was relieved by the sight of two other EMT’s at the station. I radioed to the dispatcher that we were enroute. She repeated my message and added one of her own. "Be advised that CPR is not being performed at this time." A look of understanding and dread passed between us. I prepared my mind for what my eyes did not want to see, and I silently braced myself to be strong and to stay in emotional control. There would be time to fall apart later.
    Frenzied waving pointed us to a small house. Dragging our equipment, we were led through the narrow hallways to a dark bedroom. Dwarfed on a large mattress on a floor laid our patient. I knelt down very close to the baby’s face with the long dark eyelashes and the upturned nose. She looked so sweet, as if she was only asleep. I accessed her breathing while feeling for a brachial pulse. I was relieved to feel that she was warm to the touch, and not stiff with rigor mortis. We took her off the soft mattress, placed her on the hard floor. We cut off her Mickey Mouse pajama’s and began compression’s while ventilating her airway.
    While questioning the hysterical parents, the tragic story unfolded. Arriving late in the night at their friends house, they crashed on the mattress in the middle of the floor. They had neglected to survey their surroundings. The baby woke up and rolled her way over to a plastic vegetable bag, stuffed it in her mouth and suffocated. The parents attempted to do CPR, but they had never been trained. Later we were informed that they had yanked every book off the bookshelves, desperately seeking anything to show them how to execute CPR while waiting our arrival.
    If only they had known CPR! Perhaps this story would have a happy ending. Perhaps a little girl would be getting excited for her third Christmas, instead of  never reaching her first.
    I urge you to take a CPR class. Bring a friend with you. Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation may be the greatest gift another person can receive in a time of crisis, the gift of life. Promptly initiated CPR may return victims to a productive life. Speed in beginning CPR, and getting specialized medical care for the victim is the key to saving a life. Without CPR, permanent brain damage will occur. The skill of CPR will also help you to become a more useful member to your community  where you can make a difference.