Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 779, Giving CPR.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 779.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there.
Become a member of ESL Podcast.
Everyone's doing it.
Don't be the last person in your country to become an ESL podcast member.
This episode is a dialogue between Steve and Joyce about giving CPR, cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Let's get started.
Lie down on the floor.
Why?
I have to practice for my CPR exam tomorrow.
I'm taking it so I can get my CPR certification.
Lie down, please.
Okay, okay.
Now what do I do?
You just lie there and pretend to be unresponsive, like you're in cardiac arrest.
Okay, I need to determine your heart rate and if you're breathing or not.
Then I check to see that your airway isn't blocked.
Hey, get your fingers out of my mouth.
Lie still.
You're lucky I don't have to administer artificial respiration.
Thank God for small favors.
But I do need to practice restoring your circulation by doing chest compressions.
Ouch!
That hurts.
You're supposed to be unresponsive, remember?
Hold still while I get the defibrillator.
Oh no you don't.
From now on, as far as you're concerned, I'm a case of do not resuscitate.
Joyce begins by saying to Steve, lie down on the floor.
Lie L-I-E down is a command for someone who is sitting or standing to put their body all the way down, just like you were going to sleep.
Steve says why.
Joyce says, I have to practice for my CPR exam tomorrow.
CPR stands for cardio, meaning heart, pulmonary meaning lungs, what you breathe with in your body.
Resuscitation when something is stopping, you need to get it started again.
So cardiopulmonary resuscitation, CPR, is what you give someone who has stopped breathing.
You push their chest.
You try to get their heart to start again, get them breathing again.
Joyce says, I'm taking it, I'm taking this exam, so I can get my CPR certification.
A certification is an official document showing that you are able to do something.
People get certifications as teachers that show that they are able to teach something.
A CPR certification is required by many different jobs.
If you want to be a nurse, you have to know CPR.
But if you want to work with children, you often need to learn CPR if you're working with a lot of children, for example.
Joyce says to Steve again, "'Lie down, please.'"
Steve says, okay, okay.
He lies down.
Now what do I do?
Joyce says, you just lie there.
You just stay there and pretend, act like, to be unresponsive.
To be responsive means to react.
To be unresponsive is the opposite, not to react.
In this case, it means to be unconscious, like you're sleeping.
Joyce says, act like or pretend to be like you're in cardiac arrest.
Cardiac, C-A-R-D-I-A-C. is like cardio related to the heart.
Arrest, A-R-R-E-S-T, here means stopped.
A cardiac arrest is when your heart stops, your heart stops moving.
It stops, we would use the verb beating, B-E-A-T-I-N-G.
Arrest however, has a number of different meanings in English, and some of those are in our learning guide for this episode.
Joyce says, okay, I need to determine your heart rate and if you're breathing or not.
Well, I don't know if your heart has stopped, whether you have a heart rate, but okay.
Joyce is the one who is the expert here.
She says, I need to determine your heart rate.
Your heart rate is the number of times your heart pumps or beats every minute.
Each time your heart pumps or beats, it pumps or sends blood out into your body.
And that helps determine, among other things, how healthy you are or can be one of the things that determines how healthy you are.
Joyce says that she needs to determine Steve's heart rate and if he is breathing or not.
To breathe means to move air in and out of your body, specifically in and out of your lungs.
The two parts of your body.
You have two lungs that take in air and push it out again as you breathe.
Joyce says, then I check to see that your airway isn't blocked.
Your airway.
A-I-R-W-A-Y one word is a long tube that air moves through between your nose and your lungs.
That's your airway.
Joyce wants to make sure Steve's airway isn't blocked.
To be blocked means that there is something preventing anything from going in or coming out.
It's what we might call an obstacle to block.
Steve says, hey, get your fingers out of my mouth.
Joyce is checking his airway, and so she's putting her fingers into Steve's mouth.
Steve says, get your fingers out of my mouth.
Joyce says, lie still, meaning don't move.
To lie still or to be still means not to move.
Still has other meanings in English, of course.
Some of those are in our learning guide.
Joyce says, you're lucky I don't have to administer artificial respiration.
Artificial respiration is when you help someone breathe by usually putting your mouth on their mouth and blowing air into their lungs, so they will start breathing again.
That's artificial respiration.
Sometimes it's called mouth-to-mouth respiration.
Steve says This is a somewhat humorous funny expression, meaning that you are relieved, you are happy that something good happens in a bad situation.
Thank God for small favors.
Joyce says, but I do need to practice restoring your circulation by doing chest compressions.
To restore...
R-E-S-T-O-R-E is to return something to its original condition or its original state, to bring something back that has been changed so that it is like what it was before.
To restore your circulation, means to get your blood moving again.
Circulation here refers to the blood moving in and out of your heart through your body.
Joyce needs to restore Steve's circulation by doing chest compressions.
Your chest is the area in the front top of your body.
Your heart is underneath your chest.
Well, we'd say it's in your chest.
Your breasts B-R-E-A-S-T-S are on your chest, but your chest has underneath it, or in it, your heart.
Compression here means pushing something down.
So chest compressions is part of CPR, when you are pushing down on someone's chest trying to get their heart to beat or to pump or to start again.
Steve says, ouch, that hurts.
Ouch is an expression we use, a word we use to mean that something is painful.
Joyce says, you're supposed to be unresponsive.
Remember, meaning you aren't supposed to be moving.
She's telling Steve to stop moving, to stop reacting.
Hold still. again, be still, lie still, don't move, while I get the defibrillator.
A defibrillator D-E-F-I-B-R-I-L-L-A-T-O-R is a machine that uses small amounts of electricity to to get your heart moving again.
To get your heart pumping again when someone has had a heart attack.
Steve says, oh, no, you don't, meaning, no, I'm not going to let you do that.
From now on, as far as you're concerned, I'm a case of do not resuscitate.
As far as you are concerned, is a phrase we use to show that you do not want someone doing anything more or interfering anymore in a certain area.
When you say as far as I'm concerned, you can use that expression to mean in terms of how much it's important to me.
When you're talking about whether you care about something.
As far as I'm concerned, you can go to the party.
Don't worry about me.
It's not important to me.
Steve says, as far as you're concerned, Joyce, I'm a case of do not resuscitate.
Do not resuscitate is when you're in a hospital usually and you're very sick or you're very old.
And you are telling the doctors and the nurses that if your heart stops beating, that they should not try to start it again.
They are not to resuscitate you, to try to get you breathing again, to get your heart beating again, and so forth.
But Steve is using it as a joke.
He's saying that he doesn't want Joyce to be using him anymore to practice her CPR, that he is stopping with his cooperation.
He's no longer going to help her.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Lie down on the floor.
Why?
I have to practice for my CPR exam tomorrow.
I'm taking it so I can get my CPR certification.
Lie down, please.
Okay, okay.
Now what do I do?
You just lie there and pretend to be unresponsive like you're at cardiac arrest.
Okay, I need to determine your heart rate and if you're breathing or not.
Then I check to see that your airway isn't blocked.
Hey, get your fingers out of my mouth.
Lie still.
You're lucky I don't have to administer artificial respiration.
Thank God for small favors.
But I do need to practice restoring your circulation by doing chest compressions.
Ouch, that hurts.
You're supposed to be unresponsive, remember?
Hold still while I get the defibrillator.
Oh, no you don't.
From now on, as far as you're concerned, I'm a case of do not resuscitate.
She doesn't write her scripts by line still.
She gets up, types on her computer, and gives us the wonderful dialogues we have here.
I'm talking, of course, about the wonderful Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
ESL Podcast English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.