• Roberto Barcala-Furelos, Cristian Abelairas-Gomez, Silvia Aranda-García, Miguel Lorenzo-Martínez, Santiago Martínez-Isasi, Carlota Durán-Álvarez, José Palacios-Aguilar, and Antonio Rodríguez-Núñez.
• REMOSS Research Group, International Drowning Research Alliance-IDRA (Spain), Faculty of Education and Sport Sciences, Universidade de Vigo, Spain; CLINURSID Research Group, Psychiatry, Radiology, Public Health, Nursing and Medicine Departament, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. Electronic address: roberto.barcala@uvigo.es.
• Am J Emerg Med. 2020 Mar 1; 38 (3): 618-623.

ObjectiveResponse time is a predictive factor for survival of drowning victims and lifesaving. Rescue Water Craft (RWC) are lifeboats very common in lifeguards operations. The aim of this study was to analyze the feasibility of providing effective mouth-to-mouth ventilations and/or cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on the RWC while sailing at different speeds.MethodA quasi-experimental cross-over block design was used to test during one minute efforts the effectiveness of Mouth to Mouth ventilation (MM-only) and CRP, at the beach and sailing at two diferents speeds 5 knots(kn) and 10 kn with calm sea. Quality CPR reference were 2015 ERC guidelines.ResultsThe data obtained from 13 lifeguards were included, that means that 78 resuscitation test were completed. The MM-only performance skills reached 69.7% ± 40.4 for 5 kn and 60.0% ± 41.8 for 10 kn (p = .59). For full CPR, performance was 74.4% ± 24.2 and 68.5% ± 23.9 respectively. Quality of MM and CPR decreased, not significantly, while sailing at 5 kn and 10 kn [(Q-MM; 5 kn: 59.9% ± 37.8 vs. 10 kn: 43.2% ± 41.4, p = .42)(Q-CPR; 5 kn: 64.8% ± 21.2 and 10 kn: 60.6% ± 21.0, p = .44)]. MM-only and CC variables were significantly worse on RJS when compared with resuscitation at the beach (p < .05). A trend for better results by lifeguards previously training on RJS was observed.ConclusionsResuscitation techniques on board of a RWC are feasible and therefore they could be an option for lifeguards when their training, sea conditions, distance and the victim's characteristics allow it. CPR maneuvers may be highly effective at 10 kn, both for MM-only and CPR, however, the quality of the ventilations dramatically worsen with increasing speed.Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

20 keywords...

hide…