By Donna Alvis-Banks
The Roanoke Times
Copyright 2008 The Roanoke Times
CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. — About this time last year, Susan Bricken hatched a plan to infiltrate the brains of every man and woman in the New River Valley with one never-ending, nerve-nettling song.
Last week, she serenaded 19 brawny Norfolk & Southern railroad lads gathered on the top floor of the Christiansburg Rescue Squad with that song.
“I want you to get that music in your head!” she thundered as a boom box belted Bee Gees.
“Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive. Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive!”
“Compressions are what matter,” Bricken said as the men -- fingers laced together and arms extended -- pumped at the air in time to the disco beat.
“ ‘Stayin’ Alive’ -- that’s the pace of CPR. I’m not kidding,” Bricken said. “To be effective, it’s got to be hard, fast and continuous.”
Bricken, a petite 64-year-old woman who joined the rescue squad two and a half years ago, has been on a mission this past year. She wants people to know that at least 350,000 people suffer cardiac arrest every year -- one every 90 seconds. She also wants people to know that cardiopulmonary resuscitation can buy valuable time for those people.
“CPR by itself doesn’t save lives,” she told the men in her class. “You’re buying time with CPR.”
To save lives and save people from brain damage caused by oxygen starvation, Bricken said everyone needs to learn how to do CPR.
The No. 1 thing holding us back, she said, is fear.
We are afraid of doing CPR incorrectly.
“Back in the day, nobody wanted to do it because we made it really hard,” she told last week’s audience. “No more. We’ve made it simple so that people will not be afraid.”
We’re also afraid of getting sued if we break a patient’s rib or cause injury.
“We’re covered by the Good Samaritan Act,” Bricken said, explaining that Virginia law exempts people from liability when they are rendering emergency care in good faith without compensation.
“As long as we don’t accept payment or stick a steak knife in someone’s neck, we’re OK,” she said.
And because of fear of contracting a disease, Bricken said, many of us are hesitant to engage in mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
That’s OK, too, the rescue worker explained.
“If you don’t want to give the person breaths, then still do the compressions,” she told the men in her class. “You are not going to stand around doing nothing. If I get there and you are, I’m taking your arms off!”
“I believe her, too,” a man in the audience whispered as Bricken pounded her fist for emphasis.
Mack Carbaugh, a 62-year-old Eggleston man in the class, said he understands the helplessness of witnessing a person having a heart attack and not being able to help.
Four years ago, Carbaugh’s brother died of a heart attack. Although other people were able to perform CPR before help arrived, Carbaugh said he couldn’t assist.
“I was with him until the rescue arrived. He didn’t make it,” he said.
“I really didn’t know CPR,” he added. “I’ve learned more here today than I learned when I was with the fire department.”
Darcel Irby of Columbus, Ohio, who is doing contract work with the railroad in Giles County, said he was impressed with Bricken’s presentation.
“I like it. It’s very informative,” he said. “I’m very happy with the new changes in giving CPR. It’s simpler.”
As Bricken, a native New Yorker, fired off rapid questions and cracked jokes, the men in her class took turns administering CPR to rubber dolls.
“The heart is a pump,” she said. “The first seven compressions prime it. The whole key to CPR is to circulate blood through the body. CPR is very, very hard work. You will feel it for days afterward. You will find muscles you didn’t know you had. It’s a full-body exercise.
“You’re not going to hurt them by doing hard CPR,” she added as some of the men hesitated to use all their strength on the female doll. “You’re going to help them.”
Bricken, who has trained about 500 people in the new CPR techniques, said she and other members of the Christiansburg Rescue Squad want to train every person in Montgomery County.
She told the men in her class why.
A year and a half ago, she said, a call came into the squad from out in the county. It was a beautiful day, a Sunday, and a family had gathered for a barbecue in celebration of a 7-year-old boy’s birthday.
As the day turned cool and dark, the celebrants went into the house where the women gathered in the kitchen to prepare cake and ice cream. The men retreated to the family room.
Suddenly, the man who owned the house grabbed his chest and fell back on the sofa. The other men called for the man’s wife who came running. When she saw her husband, she began crying and screaming in panic.
“They called 911,” Bricken said. “We drove as fast as we could.”
“He died,” she added, “and he was 46 years old. His son was 7. He was having a birthday. Nobody in that house knew CPR.
“That’s why I’m teaching you CPR,” Bricken told the men. “That man might have died anyway but he would have had a chance. And they didn’t know.”