Notes on death

Something my brother relayed to me about his experience performing CPR on my mother:

Her lips were not blue at all. Her cheeks were slightly blue - like they got when she was cold. As he did chest compressions, her cheeks flushed a more normal color.

Note:

This agrees completely with my CPR training (I am CPR certified and have been continuously since 2007). In fact, as compared to older CPR methodology, it is more important to do chest compressions than to do rescue breathing. We listened in class to a taped recording of a frantic woman saying: "why do my husband's eyes open when I push his chest, but he goes back to sleep when I breathe for him?"

At first, my brother felt guilt that maybe he had not performed CPR correctly. However, in 2010, my mother had a pacemaker and a defibrillator implanted. The idea is if something happened, the defibrillator would work like an external one and hopefully shock the heart back into action.

The EMS team discovered that the defibrillator had performed as designed, but to no avail.

My mom's phone was within arm's reach, and she hadn't even dialed 911. When she went, it was quick.