Soma Purana

When I learned CPR decades ago and was the caption of the first aid squad at AT&T Red Hill facility, the A-B-C (Airway-Breathing-Circulation) in this order was stressed. Not any more! It is now CAB (Circulation-Airway-Breathing).  Furthermore, mouth-to-moth is not required any more, especially, in bystander CPR. Just the chest compression at the rate of 90 to 100 per minute will do. Most effective depth of compressions =2 inches. 2 inches results in 100% resuscitation, and 1.5 inches results in 15% resuscitation.

Most people think heart attack and cardiac arrest are one and the same. They are completely two different things. In the case of heart attack, there is a blockage in the arteries that supply blood to the heart and as a result a portion of the heart muscle is starved of blood flow. The heart attack victim usually complain of chest pain, nausea, shortness of breath. There is cardiac activity in a heart attack victim.  YOU DON'T DO CPR ON A HEART ATTACK VICTIM. The treatment is aspirin, angioplasty, and other medications. In cardiac arrest, cardiac function *heart) suddenly stops. There is no cardiac activity. The victim suddenly collapses. The only immediate treatment in cardiac arrest is CPR and defibrillation. Cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death in the developed world.

I am in India for the last few days now. Yesterday morning as I was walking back from my younger brother's (Gopala) house to my elder brother's house, I challenged myself to smile at and talk to as many strangers. I naturally do this, but this time I wanted to extend my nature as an experiment and carefully note the reactions in me and the other person. In India usually it is a tough challenge to engage a stranger into a conversation, particularly, of the opposite sex. Smiling is hard too since people avoid eye contact. Within a few hundred yards, I came across a uniformed person of the city bus service standing near a restaurant. I struck up a conversation, he said he is a bus inspector. After some casual words, I offered to pay for coffee. He said he just had it. From his reaction, I knew he didn't expect this from a stranger. He seemed happy to have met me. I felt good of extending brotherly affection to a stranger. Along the way, I met another ten-twelve year old b...