The other day I took a class to become registered for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR as it is more commonly known. This is my third time having taken the course, for absolutely no reason other than that it is on my resume and I am afraid that if I revise it the format will become less appealing. So, I enrolled in the class for the third time. This time, though, I took it with some Girl Scout leaders who are required to know it in cases of emergency. Obviously, the Girl Scouts is an organization dedicated to the empowerment of young girls who mature to be empowered women. Therefore, the leaders are empowered as well. We were listening to the instructor explain the mechanics of CPR and how one should approach an unconscious person when a question arose: what do we do if the person is a female wearing a bra with a metal underwire?
This was the first time in all of my courses that we had even discussed a woman being unconscious, as I suppose we all assumed the person to be male like the dummies we practiced on were. We learned that if a woman is wearing a metal underwired bra, that metal could conduct the electricity from the automated external defibrillator, also known as the AED. If an unconscious woman is gasping for air, she needs an AED assessment. The instructor informed us that in cases of the metal underwired bra, we would need to remove the bra first before allowing the shock. We could easily remove the bra if we have access to her back, but if the woman is heavyset then it would be simpler to use shears to cut the bra off. However, not all AED kits have these shears, but scissors instead.
A majority, though, do hold razors to shave an incredibly hairy man's chest so that the pads of the AED may stick but, in my opinion, all AEDs should hold both razors and shears to cut a metal bra. As of right now, the AEDs that do not have either or only have one are therefore declaring that a thin, hairless person has more of a right to live than those who are not thin or are hairy. All people should be treated equally, especially in regards to medical practices and life saving pursuits. As of right now, the inequality is a lost life and a lawsuit just waiting to happen. Not every location is within five miles of a hospital, and with every minute a person's chances of survival decreases by 10%, according to the CPR class. With these urgent statistics, there needs to be a greater effort by the AED companies to prepare for all situations. It should also be made that all AEDs are generalized so that in any location a person knows what to expect when opening an AED and where all utilities are located.
