CPR Course Brisbane – 3 tips from the TV show ‘The Office’

So… is this how onsite CPR training at your workplace usually goes? We certainly hope not!

This much-loved clip from The Office US is as expected; irreverent, politically incorrect, painfully awkward and laugh-out-loud fun.

We can’t help but love it at My First Aid Course Brisbane. CPR is an incredibly important and potentially lifesaving skill to learn, yet we understand it helps to have a little fun in the process.

As silly as it is, the skit did get a few details right about CPR. If you’ve attended a CPR Refresher course in Brisbane with us recently, you may have picked them up.

And no, it wasn’t the part about harvesting organs. Who knew?

1. Always check for breathing before commencing CPR

The litmus test for knowing whether to start CPR is the absence of responsiveness and normal breathing. At our nationally recognised CPR courses Brisbane, participants learn how to assess for these signs properly. In general, if a person has collapsed and you can’t see or hear signs of regular breathing, you should call an ambulance and start CPR.

In fact, it would be better to have started CPR on a collapsed person, and later find that they didn’t need it, than to have not started CPR and later find that they did.

2. Call an ambulance before starting CPR

As the ever-patient CPR trainer “Rose” said in the skit, “no one called an ambulance, so you lost him”. This would likely be true even if CPR was performed properly, and here’s why.

CPR alone is not likely to start the heart and bring a victim of cardiac arrest back to life. The best way to think about CPR is as a means of keeping blood circulating around the body to keep the brain and organs viable and suffering minimal damage until advanced medical help arrives.

It is therefore critical that if CPR is needed, an ambulance is called immediately.

CPR alone will not save them.

3. Perform CPR compressions to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive”

Correct again. We often suggest singing or humming the song while doing compressions at our Brisbane CPR courses. This is because the popular Bee Gees tune has a tempo of approximately 100 beats per minute, which is the ideal speed for CPR compressions according to the Australian Resuscitation Council guidelines.

Those that aren’t particularly musical (or fond of the Bee Gees) can consider the two-per-second rule.

Either way, compressing the chest at a brisk but steady pace, at a depth of about 5 cm, optimises blood flow in the heart and up to the brain to buy time before an ambulance arrives.

And who ever said watching TV sitcoms wasn’t educational?

Fun, fast and affordable CPR course Brisbane

If you’re looking for a CPR certification course in Brisbane that is both nationally recognised AND fun, we have you covered.

Our Brisbane CPR courses are welcoming, relaxed, hands-on and time efficient. You’ll find a CPR course near you at one of our five North Brisbane CPR training venues.

Find a CPR course near me in Brisbane.

Got a group? Do what The Office did and get a quote for Brisbane onsite CPR group training at your workplace!