The problem with emergencies is that they're so far outside of our regular experience that we have little or no knowledge of what to do and how to react.
Fortunately, governments pay for emergency responders, the people who have trained extensively on what to do when lives and/or major damage to public safety and property are at risk. Part of their training is to deal with the rest of us - our confusion, anger, fear, frustration, anxiety and all of the other emotions we experience when something we never imagined happening happens.
Sometimes, just talking about preparing for emergencies is awkward. Visiting a lawyer to prepare a will forces us to deal with our own mortality and to prepare for the eventuality of our loved ones living on without us.
Or it can be the prospect of adding a defibrillator donated by the Heart and Stroke Foundation into the Elder Citizens Recreation Association building. As Christine Hinzmann explains on today's Seniors page, the proposed introduction of the life-saving machine there has not gone smoothly.
For many local seniors, the ECRA is a place of sanctuary, a place to connect with friends new and old. A small machine mounted on the wall with the ability to generate a powerful enough electrical current to kickstart a heart not beating sounds like a great idea but who would use it, if necessary? And more importantly, would the people using the machine be held legally responsible if something went wrong?
No, they wouldn't.
That's why there is a "good Samaritan" law in Canada , which protects residents who are not professional emergency responders from being sued for damages caused while trying to provide emergency medical assistance. If someone with basic first-aid training cracks someone's sternum accidentally while administering CPR, the intent is to help, not harm, and is therefore under legal protection.
Unfortunately, too many people think a defibrillator works like the paddles and gel on the medical dramas on TV and in the movies. They do the same task - shocking the heart into beating again - but the paddles on the defibrillator are just two flat sticky pieces of plastic with electrical cords coming out of them. Once placed on the bare chest of an unconscious and unresponsive person, the machine measures for a regular heartbeat. If it finds one, it doesn't not fire but if it doesn't, it warns for everyone to step back and counts down until it fires. The machine then encourages the responders to continue to apply CPR before it takes another measurement to decide whether to shock the victim again.
The machine makes the decision to shock or not shock, not the respondents.
But it wasn't really the machine that got the ECRA seniors worried as much as the 16-page contract absolving the Heart and Stroke Foundation of any legal responsibility for the device. When someone brings you a gift, they usually don't ask you to sign a contract so that you won't hold them responsible if the device either doesn't work when it's supposed to or harms someone when it is used.
While defibrillators were introduced successfully in other civic facilities (the ECRA building is publicly owned), those facilities have paid staff who take the training on work time. The ECRA is run by volunteers, so asking the group of devoted seniors to take the training and keep it current, is simply another chore for them to take on.
There's no doubt the ECRA needs a defibrillator but its introduction needed to be handled more carefully and sensitively.
