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

[Rizzlekicks123]

Never posted before but was hoping for either some moral support.

I gave cpr recently to a neighbour (who I don't know but who mutual friends do). I am not a medic and havent had formal training. Just online reading. The woman lived and is going to be ok (thank goodness). The thing that is upsetting me is that she hasn't reached out despite knowing how to find me. She owes me nothing and I'd do the same again if I was faced with it, but I feel so sad that the trauma I experienced has not been acknowledged. I dont want anything other than a "are you ok" It was so stressful. Aibu?

To be fair, anyone prioritising someone else over the person who nearly lost their life sound awful.

No one is suggesting that what happened wasn't understandably stressful and traumatic for the OP. Of course it was. Putting it on the person who nearly lost their life is the wrong way to handle that trauma.

It's not low-standard of behaviour to be unable to prioritise someone else's feelings after a traumatic event that centred you. Imagine, just for a teeny tiny second, how traumatising almost dying is. Not only just in that moment but also having to deal with the cause of the near death experience. The tests, the medication, potential surgery, everything that may happen as a result of that.

Then, imagine that the person who very luckily was there and stepped in to help save your life, was whining on the internet that you hadn't considered how they were feeling during all this.

Which one is exhibiting low level behaviour here?

The OP isn't wrong to feel traumatised or stressed after an understandably traumatising and stressful event that none of us would like to endure. She is wrong to expect something from the person who is even more traumatised to help her cope with it.

This is where she needs to speak to friends/family and cope with it that way. Maybe the neighbour, in time, will come around and thank the OP. Maybe she won't, but that doesn't mean she's ungrateful for the help provided in her time of need. She could very well still be reeling from the shock of it all.

I haven't labelled anyone's behaviour as appalling. I specifically said 'i would like to think that I would thank them'. Obviously I don't know what I would do in the actual circumstances, and it might well be that I wouldn't. We all react differently. I have thanked people who have saved my life in the past, admittedly not in a similar situation to this one.

Also well done to the OP, it was an amazing thing that you did. I echo the other posters who have said it might be a good idea to seek some support for yourself as talking really does help. Maybe not on Mumsnet though!

I haven't been in OP's position but I've been the mum of a child who survived a hospital cardiac arrest which is also a complex aftermath that I'm still recovering from 17 months later.

8 weeks is no time at all for the patient or their family.

WTF!
I'm reading all these posts in near shock! I'm astounded by the caviller attitudes from so many.

Its making me think this is surely reflective of a deeper societal breakdown.

My husband was in a v serious car crash when another car broke traffic lights & hit his car head first. It was v serious. The crash happened in a residential area of our city & an elderly man heard the bang & ran out. He called for help & sat with my husband until the ambulance arrived. Dh was concussed & injured & v traumatised after. Doctors said it was a whisker away from being fatal & he was immensely lucky to come away relatively ok (serious wounds & several broken bones)

As soon as he was discharged he went back to the area & found the house & thanked the man who had helped so quickly. The man was also traumatised as dh was unconscious when he was taken in the ambulance & the man didn't know if he'd made it or not. Or what the extent of the injuries were

He cried & hugged dh.

Its making me think this is surely reflective of a deeper societal breakdown.

Why?

Because some people think the OP is wrong to expect a woman who nearly died and went through probably the biggest trauma of her life, to then check on her and ask if she's ok?

The OP knows how to contact the woman and ask how she is because she's a neighbour, yet she's expecting it to be the other way around.

That has nothing to do with 'societal breakdown', and everything to do with the OP being wrong to expect this woman to contact her after going through so much trauma.

I'm sure if the OP had checked on the woman, she would've got whatever it is she's looking for but after 8 weeks, it's probably too late.

Not waded through all the replies, but it may be that the lady does not know who was first on the scene and giving CPR, or indeed been aware of what happened other than what she was told.
One of my brothers had a heart attack at a railway station and luckily for him the person next to him was an off duty medic who gave CPR - he was told this in recovery as the hospital knew the lady.
He has zero memory of most of the day from about an hour and a half before the attack to coming round post stent insertion in another hospital from the one he was first taken to post attack (about 5 hours later). His bran has just wiped the info.

@Rizzlekicks123 I don't think you are being unreasonable and if I was the person whose life you had saved I would definitely want to say thankyou. However its such a personal thing that the lady isn't unreasonable to be different!
It may be worth you considering some counselling - my late partner performed CPR on two people, one had a heart attack in the post office queue in front of him, the other was on a motorbike which hit a car - he died in hospital. Unfortunately both experiences ate away at my partner and when his mental health declined for other reasons his failure to 'save' these two people ate away at him even though he acknowledged that nothing could have been done to save them IYSWIM. xxxx

You say she is owed nothing but she literally saved their life. If she didnt do what she did the person would be dead!
Know if someone saved my life I would be thanking them and at least taking them round some chocolates and flowers or something.
Although as it's still recent maybe she still will do that

You don't save someone's life in the hopes of getting a thank you and some chocolates though. You do it because it's the right thing to do.

It's impossible to say what you would do in that situation unless it's actually happened to you. The lady may be out of hospital but could also still be dealing with some health issues, not to mention the trauma she has.

It isn't her job to make OP feel better because she is also going through something incredibly traumatic.

Have you taken her flowers and checked in on her? It was a great thing you did and you should absolutely have got a thank you from the m docs for making their job easier but in no way should you be upset that the person who had the cardiac arrest hasn't got around to tracking you down and thanking you. Last thing they need at the moment I imagine so yes yabu for that.

And there we have it. Different people respond differently to almost dying. Or we imagine we would.

Someone I know broke down a friend’s door in time to stop her dying by suicide. She never spoke to her again, and that must be 20 years ago or more.

You could get huffy and start going on about ‘ingratitude’, or you could accept that the emotions of the person whose life was saved are likely to be just as complex, if not more so, than those of the ‘rescuer’.

This is one of those pay it forward moments for her and one where you can feel good having done something positive without expecting a reward (or thank you).

I can completely understand your shock and upset. Having to do CPR on anyone is a very upsetting and difficult situation.
But like someone else said, support leans in. At the middle of this situation is the woman who was medically dead, then her immediate family, then you.
It's not appropriate to seek anything from the woman in the middle. Either she'll come to you in her own time, or she won't. Either way, that doesn't remove, or lessen what you did.

If you need support with processing this, then you need to turn to the next circle out from you. A partner, or immediate friends and family.

And if you need to hear it. Well done. You did a really wonderful thing, and should be, rightly, proud. You've done great things for your karmic balance!

Because the OP is actually hoping for some acknowledgement of the HUGELY selfless & lifesaving intervention she made that day.

She has repeatedly come back to say she expressed herself awkwardly in her 1st post & is not looking for the neighbout to support her. But that part of her had expected to hear something from the neighbour or their family.

The amount of posters saying the neighbour owes her nothing is incomprehensible to me. The neighbour may not be in a position to articulate it right now but she lost certainly owes a huge debt of gratitude to the op who saved her life!

No-one's saying the woman shouldn't be grateful, in fact I'm sure she is.

However, she may not have a scooby who did what when she was busy dying.

The OP could've spoken to the woman at any time when she saw her out and about and asked how she is.

Is it a truly selfless act if the expectation is owing a huge debt of gratitude and thanks though. I'd say not really.

I completely agree.

I had to perform CPR on someone and understand that you are probably suffering from some kind of trauma from it and need someone to help you process it, although the victim and their family are not the ones to help you with this.

Please see your GP or call the Samaritans and seek support from there, and look after yourself.

Many years ago, when I was in my early 20s, I was sitting on a beach near Westbourne, Bournemouth with my late partner, when an elderly lady in a heavy astrakhan coat and handbag strode purposefully into the sea up to her waist and leaned backwards until her head went under. It was off season and there were no life guards on this part of the beach and very few other people.

My partner, who did not swim and was short and very slightly built waded into the waves fully clothed and was able to drag her back to the shore. No mobile phones in those days so someone ran to a beach cafe while we stayed with her and phoned for police and ambulance and she was taken into hospital. I don't recall how we got home. It was cold and he was soaked to the skin in his office jacket and trousers and his only pair of shoes were ruined. Possibly a police car dropped us home (it was nearly 50 years ago).

My late partner contacted the police a few days later to ask if the lady was OK. He was told that she was and that the family had told the police that she had wandered off and this was her second attempt at drowning herself in the sea.

Evidently, the family had left no message with the police to pass on their thanks for pulling their elderly relative out of the water.

For some time afterwards, I had flashbacks of this lady striding into the water, leaning backwards and going under and I did feel a bit miffed at the time that her family had not found a way to pass on their thanks. (But I'd probably feel differently now, should I find myself in a similar situation.)

We pondered about this incident a lot afterwards and wondered what her personal circumstances might have been and whether she would have been relieved to have been rescued or distressed that her decision to end her life (a decision she had apparently made at least once before) had been thwarted.

Sorry you want her, the one who had the medical emergency, to reach out to you and see how YOUR trauma is? Surely she had it worse?

Altho yanbu for hoping for a thank you once she's recovered

She did not say that. 🙄

She could be in intensive care and it's best to give help without expectation of any reward or acknowledgement.

It’s implied. OP is looking for the person whose life she saved to support her. That’s unacceptable, not least because her neighbours’ experience will be totally different to OP’s own. She nearly died. She faced her own mortality. That’s enough to be going on with.