I have been watching, then participating in, the thread about Lorraine Bayless and her unfortunate death at the facility in which she resided.

With a spoonful of seemingly biased information from a blog, people were inflamed and outraged about a story based largely on emotion, and very little fact.

This thread is to bring light to the dark corners, bring you some real facts, and perhaps get you asking some of the real, hard questions that you should be asking.

I will outline a few for you, then bring you facts, and in doing so, hopefully put a whole different perspective on the issue, while stepping back from the emotional outrage.

Perhaps a different outrage may take it's place, but, that remians to be seen.

BLS - Basic Life Support -Also known as CPR

Upon finding a victim down, the first steps are to assess the victim while summoning help. While you stay with the victim, dispatch someone to call 911.

Look listen feel

Shake the person. Call to them, "Are you ok?"

If no response, feel for a pulse.

Listen for breathing, watch for the chest to rise, feel with your cheek for breathing.

Depending on the results to all of these factors is the actions you take next.

The person has a pulse.

How is their breathing? Passing out does not mean dead or dying. Count the breaths per minute.

The pulse rate, even if slow, can determine agonal rhytm, and CPR can be done with agonal rhytm.

Slow agonal breathing can determine the need for rescue breaths. If the person is choking, agonal breathing is sometimes best left alone, as attempts at rescue breaths may force the offending food item deeper. A simple finger sweep, without digging into the throat, or a visual inspection, can give evidence the food item is too deep.

In this case, pulse, possible choking with a food item deeply lodged. Rescue breathing would likely cause more blockage and completely shut off all breathing.

Wait with the patient after turning them on their side, for help to arrive.

You see, the 911 tape was edited. You only get the part where the 911 operator in half panic starts begging people to do CPR. YOU do not have all the facts.

Why was that cut from the tape? The answers may WELL reveal that no help was really needed, and in fact may have put the 911 operator in a bad light. All speculation, if course, but all answers you should be seeking. Why am I the only one asking these questions?

Next - She wanted everything done. She did not have a DNR Order.

Says WHO? I can wholly promise you, this did not come from the facility she was living in, nor any of their employees. In fact, I can almost guarantee that the facility does not have this on file. They have no need to, they are not a medical facility.

Disclosure of this, from anyone but the daughter, would be a HIPAA violation, a violation of Federal Law, without the consent of the daughter. And that means, DNR or not.

So far, all references I have seen regarding a DNR, or "she wanted everything done" has come from blogs and other talking heads that are trying to manipukate and inflame you emotionally. First, ask yourselves what their underlying intent could be, then ask yourselves why you are so easily manipulated and controlled by these people. MSM or blogs, always double, tripple, quadrouple check your facts.

Next- people stood and watched her die.

This is a bald faced lie. She was still alive, breathing, when EMS arrived.
She was treated on scene, and then transported to the hospital, where ahe was still alive. She died LATER at the hospital, of an undisclosed cause.

You see? We STILL do not have enough information about what happened in the cafeteria, what happened with EMS, and what happened at the hospital. We have no cause of death, and we have, and most likely will never have, an autopsy.

Next - this facility is like an apartment complex, except for the elderly. An Independent living facility, where you have people like concierges, that assist with shopping, travel, daytime activities, parties, movies, group outtings, etc. This is NOT a medical facility, nor is it licensed by the state to provide ANY medical care. Even applying a splint to a fracture is medical care, basic first aid, and can cause a facility such as this, to lose their state licensure.

They are located adjacent to an extended care facility that provides the same concierge type services, and light medical assistance, such as help with daily insulin, which is hard for elderly to read, or reminders on pills, more assistance with mobility issues, etc. They likely do require staff to be trained in BLS Basic Life Support.

Next to that facility, is a Nursing Home, where most people require full assist to get out of bed, are bed or wheelchair bound, vent dependent, need ADL assistance, bathing, eating, getting dressed. Pretty much full attention. Many nursing homes can give tube feedings, catheters, wound care, injectable meds, and even IV meds. If a patient becomes severely ill, they are transported to hospital.

Next - the 911 caller, in her Official capacity at the facility, was NOT a nurse. This is a misidentification by the media, and allowed to perpetrate throughout many stories.

Next, I wilk link multiple supporting sources to back up my statement.

Fact 10. In the other, some educating was done on the realities of CPR. It is not what you see on TV. Now, since we do not know the circumstances surrounding the incident in the cafeteria, we cannot judge whether CPR should have been done on Ms. Bayless.

She may have choked, she may have had low blood pressure and fainted. She may have been hypoglycemic and gone into diabetic shock. She may have had a massive stroke or intracranial hemorrhage. We just don't KNOW.

Laying that aside, lets presume she needed CPR after a proper assessment. Does she have kyphosis? (A humpback) at the base of the neck. If so laying her on her back, clearing her airway, and tilting her head back to open the airway might break her neck. It could break her spine, too, but if it doesn't, chest compressions most certainly will.

The very first chest compression will likely fracture multtiple ribs, possibly the breastbone. If the first compression didn't drive splintered bones into her organs, surely the next rapid, firm, ONE THIRD THE DEPTH OF THE BODY compressions at the rate of 120 per minute WILL.

Now, you have broken her spine, crushed her ribs, and most likely her neck. She might now have a collapsed lung from a rib tearing into at 120 thrusts a minute, shredding it to bits.

But now, you have to grab her fragile, possibly broken neck, and bend it back, do the jaw thrust, and give her breaths. Those breaths may or may not matter, because a collapsed lung won't inflate, and it is rapidly filling with blood. Her broken neck may not even allow passage of air now.

More compressions, another 120 in one minute, collapsing what was left of the remaining barrel if her chest, driving ribs sharps as razors into her underlying organs, nicking and shredding vital organs, maybe even arteries. What was once a one third thickness of her body has changed due to skeletal collapse, and your compressions now feel useless and you feel bones grinding flesh under your hand.

You have just only had a description of two minutes of a potential CPR on this scene.

If reading it disturbs you, imagine hearing it, and doing it, being the one feeling it.

In a full code, you do what you must, then you live with it. There was nothing requiring them, that has been proven, to perform this torture on this poor woman. I think above all, the daughters' approval of the treatment she received should be praised, as her mother was saved undue agony and pain in her final hours.

Caplan said, however, that even if the staffer did
perform CPR, the chances of keeping Bayless alive
were slim. Even when CPR is administered
immediately the chance of recovery is worse than 50-50, Caplan said.

Oh, so all those people wailing and tearing out their hair in the other thread were wrong? Good to know.