In 25 years as a firefighter I saw police officers attempting to do CPR on very few occasions. The last time... we showed up on scene and several officers were frantically doing ineffective CPR on a morbidly obese male. His hands were still handcuffed behind his back and there were several tazer barbs still embedded in his skin at various locations. After he was subdued the police left him face down in a hallway. It was several minutes before they realized that he had suffocated. At that time they realized that maybe their jobs were in jeopardy and the heroics started.
I had a cop tell me a story about a drug overdose victim that stopped breathing after vomiting out a can of Spaghettios. He didn’t try to resuscitate him. He didn’t feel guilty. He waited for the firemen.
Question I have, how effective is CPR delivered by a non-EMT on the morbidly obese or regular sized people without using your equipment?
Curious as to the actual numbers/stats.
As far as the few times you saw officers not doing CPR, see my previous post. Many times, if at a violent scene, the officer does not know if the criminal is still there, or if they are holding the guy, that guy may suddenly decide to become violent again.
Also, many fake distress, from breathing to joint pains to inability to walk, you name it—and you’ve seen it, too. Takes time to determine if faking it or not. And I bet you have been in crowds where you would not turn your back on them and were pleased to have the police there to watch your back as you did your job.
Point is; you weren’t there, you don’t know their policies (drafted by the desk-bound—like you suffer under I am sure), and you don’t know what motivations and facts that were in play at the time.