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Doctors School Rick Santorum On Stupidity Of CPR Suggestion
This weekend a wave of doctors, many using the #docs4gunsense hashtag, spoke out against Rick Santorum, who suggested live on CNN’s “State Of The Union” show that learning CPR was a better way for young people to take action in response to a mass shooting, rather than protesting gun violence and asking “someone else to solve their problem” by passing a “phony gun law.” The comments came during a discussion about the March for our Lives protests, which drew upward of 800,000 people to the Washington Mall on Saturday to demand gun-control legislation.
According to WaPo reports:
Santorum argued that they should try to learn how to respond to a mass shooter as an individual rather than demanding large-scale change from lawmakers.
“How about kids, instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations where there is a violent shooter and you can actually respond to that?” Santorum said. He continued: “They took action to ask someone to pass a law. They didn’t take action to say, ‘How do I as an individual deal with this problem? How am I gonna do something about stopping bullying in my community? What am I gonna do to actually help respond to a shooter?’”
A number of doctors called out Santorum for how unrealistic his proposed solution would be:
Dr. Heather Sher, a Florida-based radiologist who examined the gunshot wounds of at least one Parkland, Fla., shooting victim on the day of the shooting, called Santorum’s comments “gobsmackingly uninformed.”
“CPR is not effective with catastrophic bleeding,” she said on Twitter. “Speechless! Learn CPR! Everyone should for cardiopulmonary arrest. But for gunshot wounds, a) attend stop the bleeding course by trauma surgeons or b) pass #gunreform (helpful hint: option b is the better option.)”
Rebecca Bell, a pediatric critical care doctor at the University of Vermont Medical Center, broke it down in layman’s terms:
“Here are some stats made simple for Rick Santorum,” she said on Twitter. “Survival rate of pulseless trauma victims who get CPR at the scene: VERY, VERY LOW.
“Survival rate of people who don’t get shot in the first place: MUCH, MUCH BETTER.”
Peep more of the Twitter responses below:
Hit the flip to see Santorum make his wack comments
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