2012........Whistling to a new tune

                        
                    
Well…as castings go, a few questionable appointments have been immortalised on film:

Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther

Nicole Kidman as a brain surgeon in Days of Thunder

Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist in The World is not Enough

Colin Farrell as in Alexander the Great in Alexander

Now, the casting of hard man Vinnie Jones in the British Heart Foundation campaign for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, supported by the Resuscitation Council, could have been another mistake on celluloid but its not.

Whoever risked their skin to put Vinnie Jones as the front man for the “ Hard and Fast” bystander or Joe public "Hands only" TV CPR campaign has scored a complete coup. Jones is brilliant. The TV advert is brilliant – from the sliding of the body, the bouncers swaying in the background, the placing the hands on the “Sovereign” is priceless imagery...."visual gold" if you like. All the way to the final stare, it is genius.

The campaign is spot on but it’s a shame that it is being chopped up in terms of time depending what TV channel you watch it on. I have heard some criticism of the new tune this week when out and about … “Stayin Alive is too fast”  “…it's to bouncy”, “.. it’s too high” . Come on it is the Bee Gees, you are not meant to sing or dance to it...not here.

Those of us more used to teaching cardiopulmonary resuscitation to small groups are more traditionally used to embarrassing ourselves by asking the audience “Nelly the Elephant or the Archers theme tune…do you know it? Can you hum it?”  Its 2012, We need to whistle to a new tune now. Stayin Alive is corny but at least the intro is better! Come on, it was even on the BBC’s Sherlock final episode last night....there is public service for you. The appeal of music in CPR has been around for a years though. Basically anything over 100 beats per minute is fine but Stayin Alive seems cool.

It’s the science bit that won’t get through with the TV campaign though…how can they in just a few minutes between a Tesco and WH Smith advert?  We inhale [need] 21% Oxygen from the air and exhale 17% Oxygen as well as waste gases – hence the need for a quick 999 call to ensure that help comes without much delay as higher concentrations of oxygen are needed as mouth to mouth resuscitation is helpful but cannot deliver nearly enough oxygen. We know through common sense and guidance from the Resuscitation Council that the almost endless distance of arteries within our adult bodies will still retain some oxygen for a short time if the heart ceases…we just need to pump it round, albeit without much delay.

[Best practice and guidance does change for children and victims of drowning however]

The Hard and Fast motto [whoever thought of the knuckle tattoo is still dining out on that]  will hopefully stop any wasted time. Shout help and get on with it.

Get yourself on a CPR course and start whistling.....