Friday, June 12, 2020

Three Safety Tips for Using an Automated External Defibrillator (AED)

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Key Facts to Know About Medical Service Dogs

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Appropriate Time to Provide Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation


Jimmy Marwan Kassis graduated with a degree in psychology and is now working as an emergency medical technician at Beaumont EMS. Jimmy Marwan Kassis is experienced in providing immediate pre-hospital medical care such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and hemorrhage control to sick or injured patients.

Commonly referred to as CPR, cardiopulmonary resuscitation involves multiple techniques including cardiac compression which is performed by pumping the heart in a process known as artificial circulation. This helps achieve blood circulation and oxygen delivery to body organs of patients with cardiac arrest before moving or while moving the patient to an appropriate health facility to save their life. Cardiac arrest is a condition where the heart stops pumping, and it can follow a heart attack. Also known as acute myocardial infarction, a heart attack happens when part of the heart does not receive enough oxygen. If a patient with cardiac arrest is not attended to immediately, they can die.

When cardiac arrest occurs, a person untrained in CPR can provide immediate hands-only CPR, which involves uninterrupted chest compression that reaches between 100 to 120 compression per minute prior to the arrival of an emergency technician. If a CPR untrained individual is unable to tell whether an unconscious patient has a cardiac arrest or not, they can still provide immediate CPR anyway. An emergency technician or paramedic on arrival will check the pulse and breathing of the patient. The technician begins chest compression if the patient shows no sign of breathing or a pulse within 10 seconds. Often, emergency technicians or paramedics start CPR with 30 chest compression followed by two rescue breaths.

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Behavioral Emergencies - Common Symptoms and Causes


With a degree in psychology from Wayne State University, Jimmy Marwan Kassis serves as an emergency medical technician at Beaumont EMS. Jimmy Marwan Kassis has provided a wide range of pre-hospital emergency medical care, including behavioral emergencies.

Also known as a psychiatric emergency or behavioral crisis, a behavioral emergency is defined as an irregular behavior of a person, which poses a danger to the same person and the people around them due to lack of control. Often, the affected persons are not aware of the condition. In most cases, the necessary steps to control the condition are taken by the people around the individual.

Behavioral emergencies are often characterized by extreme agitation, such as yelling, lashing out, screaming, irrational thoughts, and flinging of objects. In some people, a behavioral emergency is common after substance abuse. For others, behavioral emergencies stem from a mental illness. Additionally, medical conditions that affect the brain and central nervous system, such as meningitis, traumatic brain injury, reduced blood circulation to the brain, and low blood sugar makes a person susceptible to behavioral crisis.