Back in 2018, the unforeseeable happened; I had to perform CPR on a friend of mine.
Rewind back to 2008 when I had my first training on CPR. At age 15, not many people took the class very seriously. I paid attention, but it was a little awkward doing compressions in front of a young group of new lifeguards. Yup, you guessed it! My very first job was lifeguarding; something that I never wanted to give up doing. I guess you can say I have always wanted to work in a health field of some sorts ever since I was young.
I will never forget Memorial Day 2018. I had spent the night at my friends house to help her pack the next day. Never did I think that only a few hours later, we would be performing CPR on her boyfriend. We found him and were in complete shock at first. She yelled for me to call 911, then had me start CPR. My adrenaline was running, I couldn’t believe it. It took me a second to regroup myself. I walked over to his lifeless body and began doing compressions while leaning over his head. Not ideal, I know. We were in a tight space and I had to do what I could. I moved in closer and was able to squeeze in on the right side of him. I began compressions again. My friend rotated in a time or two, but it was mainly me on his chest. 11 minutes later, after our initial call to 911, the paramedics showed up and we went outside. After a moment of disbelief, I realized that I had just performed CPR for the first time.
I will never forget that moment; it is engraved in my head. Unfortunately, he did not make it, but I know that I did was I was trained to do. I performed high quality CPR in a very high intense situation. This year is when I really was ready to begin teaching Basic Life Support so I reached out to my mom, who is an instructor, and she was able to get me in an instructor certification class. As of June 2022, under the American Heart Association, I am a BLS instructor and proud of it! After my personal experience, I want everyone to be just as prepared as I was in that moment. Yes, you may be in shock or scared, but training does kick in and you do as you were taught in class. My goal is to teach everyone around me, family, friends, and acquaintances high quality CPR so they can be ready at any moment.
For information on my classes, click here or visit my BLS page.