HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE

Umatilla, FL

My friend Gerry forwared this email.  I think it's great.

I hope everyone can send this on as it is really important for everyone to know

1. Let's say it's 7:25pm and you're going  home (alone of course) after an unusually hard day on the job.  
2. You're really tired, upset and frustrated.  
3. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to drag out into your arm and up in to your jaw.  You are only about five km from the hospital nearest your home.
4. CALL 911 immediately.  While you're waiting do the following.
5. Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far. 
6. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.                 
7. Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack without help, the person whose heart is beating  improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.  
8. However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously.
9. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. 
10. A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.  
11. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and  coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood  circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it to regain a normal rhythm.
12. In this way, heart attack victims can get help or to a hospital. 
13. Tell as many other people as possible about this. It could save their lives! 

UPDATE

I'm very sensitive to spreading Internet misinformation.  I may have been sucked in on this one.   Thanks to anonymous, who posted the comment below.  It seems that this info is partially true so I won't delete it  But I did edit it to include the call 911 step first.

Thank you Anonymous.  Here is anonymous' comment.

Anonymous2/24/2017 1:56 PM

I travel alone so read this with interest. Since I used to be a librarian I also had to do a quick bit of research. It looks like this is something of an Internet "meme," that might or might not be helpful. The quick gist looks like it may help for certain types of heart attacks, but for other types (more common?) it could actually hurt vs. calling 911 and sitting quietly (presuming one is not on top of a mountain with no cell signal).

Of course each person should make their own decision, but here is a link to a couple of articles that aren't as enthusiastic.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/homecure/coughcpr.asp

https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-matters-magazine/medical/ask-the-experts/cough-cpr

Precious Two

These are our great grandchildren,   Anna and her new brother Calvin.  We greatly look forward to seeing them this summer.

A New Hobby

Umatilla, FL

There are lots of activities in this RV park.   Numerous sports, crafts, poker and other card games, dances, bingo, hiking, concerts, pot lucks, and so on.   But my tastes are somewhat out of the mainstream.  For evening entertainment, I think guest lectures and a debating society would be lots of fun.  Whenever we can, Libby and I watch one of the debates from Intelligence Squared US.  But few or none of my neighbors share those interests.

But I'm delighted to say that I found a very agreeable outlet for my yearnings -- Toastmasters International.   I joined the Golden Triangle Toastmasters Club in Tavernes, and the Toasting Ocala Club in Ocala.   It has been very enjoyable so far.,

Heretofore, writing has satisfied my creative urges.  This blog (2906 articles so far), two books that I'm working on (very slowly), and physicsforums.com (7 articles and 2443 posts so far).   But Toastmasters helps me to develop other verbal and social skills.  I love it.

This summer in Vermont, I'll try to find a Toastmasters Club there.

Meet Calvin

Umatilla, FL

Born today,  Calvin Meagley, our first great grandson and second great grandchild.  Calvin, his sister Anna, mom and dad Sara and Harley are all doing fine.

😍😍😍

Shocked. I Tell You Shocked

Umatilla, FL

Yesterday, Libby complained that the RV lights and fan in the bathroom stopped working. Huh? That's strange. I checked it out and she was right (as usual). But an hour before I saw them working. Very strange.

I went to the breaker panel an verified that all breakers were reset.

The non-functioning part is a wall light switch with three switches, two for lights and one for the fan. I thumped the wall beside the switches. The lights flickered. OH NO VERY BAD! I thumped again, this time I not only saw a flicker, I heard an electrical arcing noise. VERY VERY VERY BAD! That is the kind of electrical problem that can lead to structure fires!!!

So, I shut off the breaker, and took things apart. I isolated it to one of the switches. It was not the kind of switch with screw terminals seen in housing. The wires disappeared into the inside. I opned it up. Horrors, instead of screw terminals, the wires were fastened with the type of connection used in vampire wire taps, sometimes seen in auto wiring as seen in this picture.




I've used connectors like that before in cars, to hook up low power things like tail lights.  But that was low risk 12V systems.  I also used them for the first 1 or 2 years on board Tarwathie, but I learned by experience that such connectors have very poor reliability.  I stopped using them on 12V systems many years ago.

I never dreamed that the safety codes would allow using that for 120V AC wiring.    But I must be wrong, because the manufacturer of my RV and the manufacturer of those light switches could not have gotten away with violating the law.

So it must be true that the National Electrical Code which assures us safe electrical practices allows huge differences between house and RV wiring of 120V circuits.  Oh my God.  I would have never guessed that.

I am tempted to replace all the outlets and switches in the whole RV to normal house standards.  The only thing that makes me hesitate is humility.  I'm an electrical engineer, not a licensed electrician.   If I set out as an amateur, I should expect unforeseen problems and mistakes.

Before doing anything hasty, I thought I would ask my blog readers for their opinions.   What do you say?

p.s. So what did I do in my bathroom?   I inspected the light switch carefully.  It was not faulty, so buying a new one would not help.  I stripped the insulation on the ends of the wires.  The conductors were not damaged, so there was no need to replace the wires.  So I reinstalled the wires in the original switch and the switch in the wall.  Sorry, but I forgot to take pictures, and I didn't think to take measurements to see if conventional house wires and an enclosure box would fit.

p.p.s.  I'm still trying to research more about the applicable safety codes.  My friend Jim Hardy is helping me.  Look for more on this subject in future posts.

UPDATE: Here are some pictures.   The switches are self-contained boxes, designed to fit in narrow spaces. In the bottom picture, you can see how the wires are connected with V-shaped clamps instead of screws.  Those clamps penetrate the insulation.  In the picture, I removed the insulation from the ends.