Another One Bites The Dust???

A few weeks ago, the children and I attended a very brief drop in training for a new Red Cross technique they are calling CCR. CCR is compression only CPR - no more counting then breathing, counting then breathing...

When they demonstrate and teach this skill the instruction is to perform compressions at the rate of 100 per minute. To help you adjust your rate of compression to the right tempo, they play the song "Staying Alive". (Great little Bee Gee's tune, btw). So the children are able to appopriate demonstrate their tempo and technique and we leave the fire station where the training was held. While it was not the most exciting thing they had ever done, it did capture their attention and while they were in the car, they were humming the tune and tapping out the rhythm. Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-stay-ing-a-live-stay-ing-a-live... Over and over and over.

I don't know about you, but there's only so many times I can listen to the same 10 second or so segment of a song before it drives me batty. So I turned on the car radio. The song that was playing? "Another One Bites the Dust" (one of OUR favorite Queen oldies). Boy child, ever the percussionist, starts tapping out the drum line of this tune instead and discovers "It has the same tempo!" Both children are quite pleased to realize that they can think of more than one song to play in their heads if they ever have to perform CCR to get the proper compression rate.

Of course the suggestion from the children was that the Red Cross should change their instructional music from "Staying Alive" to "Another One Bites the Dust" but something tells me that's not going to happen. As girl child finally thought it through she said, "yeah, it probably isn't good advertising for life saving skills to have a theme song that says another one bites the dust." Smart kid!