Gave cpr. Not heard anything from the victim. Is it ok to feel a little sad?

@Rizzlekicks123
I used to work for the British Heart Foundation. I believe if you contact their helpline they can put you in touch with someone who you can debrief with and help you through the shock you experienced.

Thank you for helping your neighbour.

I get how you are feeling as I gave someone CPR a couple of years ago and felt very affected by what had happened for a long time. It was very unexpected - someone collapsed jogging in the middle of nowhere and the ambulance took about 20minutes to arrive. The CRP process was brutal but luckily the defibrillator was successful and I heard eventually that he had survived with no brain damage.
I also wanted him to reach out for quite a while, but really I think what I needed was to talk about something major that we had both been part of so I could process it. I found the weirdest part was after the ambulance took him I drove home and just got on with the Sunday lunch as if nothing had happened.
He never did get in touch but the feelings did fade in time.
in some countries there is a national service that helps people who have done something like this to process the event as they recognise it as a contribution to society.
I hope you find some closure.

The neighbour is dealing with a near-death experience.

Plus I think people need to be realistic about how complex feelings can be towards the person who saved you. There can be embarrassment and fear as well as gratitude. This person is coming to terms with narrowly escaping death because of the OP’s intervention, at least in part, though CPR is successful in a relatively small number of cases. That’s a lot.

It’s absolutely understandable the OP is profoundly shaken, but she needs not to have unfair expectations of the only person involved to be more shaken than she is, and who is also making a physical recovery.

British heart foundation has some advice on their website https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/support/support-if-youve-given-cpr

They also have online training for anyone that's interested in knowing how to person cpr.

This 💯

Virtue is its own reward, OP.

Just wanted to chip in and say I hear you when you say it is traumatic. I’m a paramedic and I’ve done CPR more times than I care to remember, including on a friend’s dad. I didn’t realise it was her dad until friend walked into the room just as I was shoving a tube down his throat. The “is my dad going to die” phrase still haunts me. He lived, and friend said he was v thankful but couldn’t consider a message/ to meet me as she was traumatised from what happened to him. I understood completely and sent my best wishes via her for a speedy recovery. Knowing he is alive and well again is more than enough.

We do sometimes get patients ask to meet us after, but weirdly all mine have been from what I’d describe as pretty non descript, day to day jobs (to us). I don’t feel the need for thanks in all honesty, it’s my job and to know I’ve helped is enough. You generally are the faceless person at the start of a v long chain of hospital staff for that patient.

The focus for you here needs to be on you and how you are feeling after doing that CPR. It is something you don’t get chance to think about, you just have to act. This often means your feelings are brushed aside and come out later. Without a doubt, one of the calls that haunts me most is one we just happened upon whilst taking a different patient to hospital. No time to mentally prepare at all. Reach out to friends and family. We usually do a “hot debrief” after more traumatic calls, run through the job step by step; what went well and how we could improve for next time etc. This defo allows for processing to take place. I honestly wouldn’t be expecting someone in the early days/wks/months of survival post arrest to be considering you, as odd as that may sound.

Good job though. Only 5-8% of out of hospital cardiac arrest patients survive. If you hadn’t have done what you did, I have no doubt the patient wouldn’t have survived to discharge. Try and come to peace with it and know that you’ll be well equipped should you ever be unfortunate enough to need to do this again :)

OP , it is a traumatic situation all round .
I have to do BLS every year as part of my work and one thing they are very insistent on is telling us that CPR often does not have a good outcome . It's not like on the telly .

So for your CPR to have a positive outcome is brilliant. More often a First Aider will have the remorse of "did I do the right thing "?

Would you consider doing a course in Basic First Aid , it is a worthwhile skill.

( I called 999 for a patient , he was on the floor I could see him through the letterbox . He was taken to A&E . Don't know the outcome either . I wasn't expecting a Thank You card ! Maybe he had no relatives but I honestly don;t think he knew what was going on )

Yabvu I don't think person who nearly died owes you to acknowledge your trauma from saving their life. I think the knowledge that you saved a life should be enough and if you need support you need to be reaching out to your friends, your family or a professional for that not the lady who is pretty shaken up from nearly dying.

Save a life Scotland run a helpline for those who have provided bystander CPR, I’m sure they could speak to or sign post you to elsewhere if you are not in Scotland. They are open 9.30-4 Mon-Fri on 0808 801 0899.

I would call them, giving CPR is traumatic and it’s helpful to process this. I would say though that your neighbour actually did die, she was resuscitated and this can come with devastating outcomes even if she is home she may have suffered traumatic injury, have heart failure, have a hypoxic brain injury or she may just need time to process what has gone on.

well done, the survival rates for out of hospital cardiac rates are around 10% so it’s nothing short of amazing that you provided this help.

Dunno about the rest of y'all, but I'd be thanking the person who memorised that Vinnie Jones advert and saved my life.

It's not like she even has to find her rescuer, it's her neighbour.

Even if she's not up to a 1:1, a card and flowers can't be that hard to arrange if you are not dead.

Has anyone asked you if you are ok, OP?

I don’t think you can maybe expect too much from the resusitee but do you have anyone in your life to see how you’re doing?

I think your feelings are valid. And I think you need someone to look in on you. I just don’t think you can expect that from the person that you did cpr on.

She may be alive OP but how "OK" is she?

If someone gave me CPR, I would get in touch to thank them, not ask if they were ok.
Also, CPR is massively damaging, the woman will be very ill for several weeks, I think.
I'm sure she will be in touch eventually. She's probably embarrassed, it's a horrific experience for everyone. Loss of dignity for the CPR-ee.

For your neighbour to have needed CPR, she would have been unconscious at the time.

How does she know you gave her CPR?

Hold your head high @Rizzlekicks123 you did the right thing and you don’t need to be thanked by her to know this 💙

Are you going to come back and tell us how long ago this happened?

I mean it's pretty relevant really.

Blimey OP, that’s amazing. Are you medically trained? CPR is brutal and has a very poor success rate when carried out by members of the public. How long did you do it for and how recent was it? What did the ambulance crew say to you when they arrived?
she may not be ready so maybe she will speak to you at a later date.

It would be odd for her not to, but people are odd.

Umm, she nearly died. I think expecting anything much from her right now is a bit unfair. I’m not sure she needs to acknowledge your ‘trauma’.
You did a good thing. Be proud and if necessary find someone to talk to, to help you process.

You've done an amazing thing OP. Possibly one of the most important things any of us have done. I'm sure it was traumatic, but you got on and did what was needed when it was. You're amazing! The patient however I am sure hasn't even thought of you. And you know what? That makes it even more amazing what you did, as you did it selflessly.

She may not know it was you.
She is probably traumatised herself.
She may still be very unwell.
She may not want to discuss it.
I was a nurse for many years, you dont give to recieve thanks or praise.
You do however need to look after yourself and if you're feeling genuinely traumatised please reach out to family/friends/counselling to help you process.
Genuinely well done for helping to save her life

You might think that now but nearly dying is highly traumatic, can change you priorities and outlook and you can't be sure how you'd react

I think I can understand how strange it must be to have such an intimate and dramatic involvement with another in their moment of greatest crisis, and then for it to be all over, with no connection left. So I wouldn't dream of voting YABU.

But, kindly, I don't think there is any reason why this person should contact you. As others have said, the event will have been traumatising for her too, and she might feel quite strange and awkward about receiving this help.

Think of it as being like organ donation or blood donation, where anonymity is quite a beautiful and practical part of the transaction.

I also want to say that your experience and feelings are making me think of the Ian McEwan novel Enduring Love, where a moment of life and death crisis binds people together in ways that are emotionally overwhelming and destructive. Not saying that you are like that, but the story does turn on the rawness and strangeness of such an experience.

I'm surprised at the majority of responses here. I'm pretty sure that if someone had saved my life, I'd want to thank them as soon as I was lucid enough to do so.
I'm surprised that so many posters presumably don't feel that way, as they think the neighbour is reasonable in not having contacted, or got someone to get a message to, OP.

I get that, but it’s important that she be realistic about her need to seek support for her understandable trauma from people other than someone who is certainly more traumatised than the OP, because of almost dying.