Added a brief note about how the Magical Defibrillator almost ALWAYS requires to attempts to work.
FalseDawn
topic
12:47:10 PM Jul 26th 2010
Could somebody who understands these things please mention why, on TV, they often yell "Charging to 360!" or whatever, before they yell "Clear!" ?
I assume it's how much electricity to use, but does that mean it varies depending on the type of problem, or just how much power they need?
Cheers!
alcockell
03:45:40 AM May 10th 2011
Advanced Cardiac Life Support protocols.
Casualty is intubated or having O2 supplied through bag and mask...
Normal practice when defibbing an adult will have the operator supply a 200-joule shock, then adrenalin would go in. If that fails, then they try a 300 joule shock. After that, it's 360, epi, 360, epi...
These are when they are shocking an adult externally. With a child (remembering from Casualty, I believe it's half that). *internally*, as in directly across the heart, it'll be down around the 20-50 joule mark.
Most automatic ones, though, have two settings - 200 and 360. In this case, it's 200, 200, 360...