Schaefer method

The Schaefer method of artificial resuscitation is the horsey ride of lifesaving.

That said, it was also kind of fun.

For those of you (read: everyone) who don't know how this works, it's pretty simple: the person to be resuscitated lies on his stomach, allowing fluids to drain from his lungs (and preventing him from swallowing his tongue!) while the resuscitator sits on his back "with his hands between the short ribs." (Reading this made me hungry, though I've eaten ribs only once in my life, with my grandparents somewhere in Jersey when I was maybe 10. At the time, they offended my occasionally-fastidious sensibilities, but I have a feeling that by this time in my life I would essentially be om nom nomming all the way home.)

Anyhow, the short ribs. The resuscitator leans forward, pushing the air out of the poor, conked-out rescuee's lungs, then releases pressure, allowing the air back in. In the Handbook, this is even illustrated, albeit somewhat uselessly. Please note that the pictures accompanying this entry are from the Handbook via Project Gutenberg, and not from my own demonstration, which involved 100% more sweatpants.

So, it's been a long week -- the first week of school means back-to-school throat (the teachers' affliction of a combination of stress, talking loudly, and sudden exposure to all the germs you didn't have to deal with over the summer), and this evening was shaping up to mean a long nap and not much else. However, my husband is a good, good person and was willing to volunteer himself for some saving of lives.

The entire process was pretty easy, and (according to John) works quite well in the lung-compression department. I kept asking for feedback while I was also doing the pushing-out-air section of Schaefering, which made it difficult for John to answer, but in later debriefings he made it clear that the whole shebang did effectively encourage some breathing. Surprise big of news: while being compressed, your communication is largely reduced to tapping on the ground with increasing or decreasing measures of urgency.

The main advantage to the Schaefer method, as far as I can tell, is this: it's quick and easy, and takes essentially no skill. While the internet has told me the Schaefer method was replaced by another lifesaving method (Holger Neilson, named for a Danish fencer whose name is funnier, and which involves pressing on the resuscetee's upper back) in 1952, and eventually by mouth-to-mouth in the late '50s. Mouth-to-mouth, of course, requires way more skill, or at least more physical contact. Schaefer? Easy peasy. You can even do it on your apartment floor, while wearing sweatpants.