Kistaro Windrider @kistaro@dragon.style

Dunno why this is on my mind, but it is, and I can't stop thinking about it until I type this up, so.

There are a lot of guides out there on what to do in case of someone suddenly experiencing cardiac arrest. Please study https://www.stlukeshealth.org/resources/plan-it-cardiac-arrest-how-respond right now. It is short.

This guide, like almost all guides, omits the actual "crisis management" parts. Which is fine; teaching someone what to do and asking them to do it is the most approachable way to get the information out there. However, about half of people who collapse of cardiac arrest in public receive no help. Most people know they should at least call 911 (or your local emergency services shortcode), but don't, because they are confused and afraid and don't know who should do what.

It does not matter who does what as long as all the steps are performed as quickly as possible. You will decide who does what and you will do it immediately because it does not matter what the decision is but it does matter that the decision is made, and nobody without this specific crisis training starts yelling orders at complete strangers, which is the correct thing to do because then people do things instead of stand around alarmed and confused.

* Act. If someone suddenly collapses, YOU intervene immediately. Inaction kills.

* A person who cannot breathe and has no clear pulse is dead. You are reviving a dead person. It is impossible to hurt a dead person. Correct action will probably crush their ribcage. Inaction will guarantee they stay dead. I will refer to the person who has collapsed as "the dead person" as a reminder that your emergency response will not make their situation any worse.

* Direct. If nobody is already yelling orders, you will. Order individuals around: nobody responds to "somebody" because nobody knows who "somebody" is. If anyone you give an order to does not respond after two attempts, pick someone else. Give them a third attempt in case of "What?", but not a fourth if they stay confused and immobile.

At the top of your lungs, towards the largest group of people in the area who are not already involved: "CPR! CPR NOW! EMERGENCY! CPR NEEDED NOW!"

Yell "YOU! HERE! CPR!" at the physically most imposing person who responded. If nobody responds, start chest compressions and yell "YOU! HERE! DO THIS!" at the physically most imposing person around. Demonstrate chest compressions and emphasize: "All your weight. Do not stop. Break ribs." If you have the most upper body weight among people who can move freely, perform chest compressions yourself.

You cannot hurt a dead person. If you are not breaking ribs, your chest compressions are likely not effective. "Alive with shattered ribs" is much better off than "dead".

Yell at any one person not already using their phone: "YOU! CALL 911!" (non-Americans, replace with your local emergency number.) This may be redundant, which is fine, multiple 911 calls are much better than none. People texting, photographing, or recording video are preoccupied, it is not worth your time to try to get through to them.

If you know where an AED is: At anyone who looks like they can read signs and run quickly: "YOU! GET THE AED! RUN!" Point at the nearest "AED" sign. This may get a "What?", to which the answer is "There is an automatic defibrilator near that 'AED' sign. Get it! RUN!"

If you cannot get anyone to run for the AED in two tries, or you know where the AED is but the sign is around a corner, get it yourself. Run. Yell "MOVE! EMERGENCY!" at anyone in or almost in your path.

Use the AED. It will give you directions. If someone else got the AED and begins to use it, do not interfere.

Continue following AED directions (which will include when to resume chest compressions) until emergency services arrive. If whoever is performing chest compressions gets tired, find someone else.

* If an AED is close by and the dead person looks like an adult, use the AED before any other steps. Be conspicuous and loud and order a bystander to call 911. Adolescents and children need chest compressions for at least one minute before using an AED.

* The AED has sensors to determine what it should do. It will not deliver an electric shock to the dead person unless it might help. Do not be afraid to use an AED: it won't do anything if it doesn't need to.

* If you do not know where an AED is, yell "FIND AN AED" at nobody in particular. If someone knows what an AED is, this should start them running. Regardless, start picking random people who look like good runners: "YOU! FIND AN AED." You'll probably have to clarify: "Look for a sign that says AED. It has a picture of a heart with a pulse on it. It is probably over a doorway and probably near a bathroom. An AED is a defibrilator and it is this person's best chance to live. GO!" Then point in the direction of where you think the nearest bathroom might be. Repeat, sending people in different directions.

* If someone else is yelling orders at strangers, let them. If you know where the AED is, yell "GETTING THE AED" and sprint for it. You will save time. Time saves lives. Otherwise, if you know CPR, push your way to the dead person and start. If someone smaller than you is doing chest compressions, interrupt them with "I can push harder" unless the sound of breaking ribs informs you that they are doing well enough.

* You will probably fail. Even with the best possible bystander response, with an AED immediately available, most dead people stay dead. 40% of people who experience cardiac arrest in public and receive bystander intervention survive. Without intervention, less than 5% survive.

* About half of people who die of cardiac arrest in public receive no help from bystanders. 35% of these people were killed by the inaction of bystanders.

I genuinely feel weird using binary pronouns for people at this point

my gender is, and remains, 🐉

This seems like as good a time as any to remind folks that I'm otherkin. I don't need to preface this with some explanation about how identity is all in your head and is whatever you make it; my cosmology allows for past and parallel incarnations, a universe that we can only begin to glimpse at from over here while physically incarnate on earth, and allows souls to acquire a form - which does not have to match their incarnation. I am a dragon, I have been a dragon for aeons, and I will continue to be a dragon after this planet's star burns no more.

None of us are bound to any one place or time forever. Incarnation is transitory, but souls are eternal; a consciousness is an indivisible spark of will and experience, but it has no power to act or experience anything on its own; incarnation is the only way out of an insensate hell. (Or an insensate nirvana, if you are better at keeping company with only yourself than I am.) Incarnation is, to a first approximation, recursive; I am a soul, incarnated as a complicated crystalline being of fractal nature that exists alongside itself in a multitude of places and times, which again incarnates to experience and explore forms of the universe that it cannot exist in, which incarnate and reincarnate subject to local forces and whatever passes for "metaphysics" (or just plain physics) wherever it happens to be. What else is there to do, but unwind the mysteries of the universe? We're here, we might as well figure out what "here" is.

Most of the time, I incarnate in something that at least resembles a dragon, for reasons of comfort and personal preference. This was *supposed* to be a sapient lizard planet but apparently my copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide was sixty-five million years out of date, so I've made do with the species that at least has smartphones. I can exfiltrate some brilliant works of engineering, electronics, and reinventing the process of logic for the benefit of machines - pure machines, with no souls, engaging in reasoning! Few places have laws of physics so strict that there's no easier way to do it, leading to spectacular development in large-scale mathematics and hyperminiaturized electronics, all of which can be re-applied to places that don't *need* it so didn't develop it, but could use it.

So perhaps I'm a little "old-school" by local standards, because not a word of this is figurative. I have beliefs that I freely agree are unusual, and a self-consistent and unusual cosmology to match. I read Tarot (although I'm badly out of practice) and am reasonably convinced that it works, when applied well. My consciousness is not primarily local, although it's running on a monkey meat computer that I'm not entirely happy with (but who is?) but I make it work and I know it's doing its best.

I neither require nor expect people around me to believe that my view of the universe, and my place in it, and my nature, is accurate. I believe it to be accurate, however, and I will not make psychological excuses for why; it is a reflection of the sum of what I am and have experienced and perceived; it is not abstract.

the realization that I don't start conversations with people because I feel like staying away is the kindest, most considerate thing to do because I perpetually feel like I am innately revolting is hitting pretty hard right now

I'm demisexual, but I get attached to folks so easily it's hard to tell sometimes

decades ago, I saw a frozen fish box at the supermarket with an elaborate, flowery font that I couldn’t quite read and now I think about “Crispy Battered God” more than makes sense

about every other year, I have, months after my annual flu shot, a flare-up of inflammatory pain right where I got the shot, usually a couple of hours after being out in public somewhere. I suspect this is a my immune system waking up and using what it learned from the vaccine.

so, I got my COVID-19 shots in opposite arms. That was in July. right now, both of those injection sites hurt, very much like the post-immunization soreness, very distinctly.

BULLET. FUCKING. DODGED.

I very consistently abbreviate “follow up” as “f/u” in my work notes and to-do lists because mentally pronouncing it as such amuses me. “f you doc comments.” “f you quarterly planning.”

I wonder if hypnosis is indeed the only kink where preparing for play primarily involves microphone testing, configuration, and positioning

I am less convinced of UPS' time travel abilities than they seem to be.

Sometimes I wake up with great insights and interesting thoughts to start the day

And then there are days like this where I remember the first time I attempted the Fireman’s Carry Throw in my judo class, lost all my momentum and the person I was throwing kinda flopped off over my front instead of to the side, and Sensei Shepard, when she stopped laughing enough, explained that, no, “not like dumping a barrel of toxic waste into the ocean!”, a phrasing choice that has apparently stuck with me for the intervening 18 years

database client? more like database clien’t

I did not actually vandalize Wikipedia but sometimes the temptation is _very_ strong

consider: a dragon, snoozing, curled up on a hoard of Steam achievement icons, trading cards, and other assorted inventory debris

achivement unlocked: won as the solo Impostor in a 1v5 game of Among Us with my co-workers, in which the last two crewmates voted for each other during the final vote