We used to have to clean and re-use our pocket masks after use ('til they made the mistake of putting me in charge of ordering, then we suddenly had a lot of them o hand), we were told to just wash them out with soap and water, then spray with a disinfectant spray...

The mask itself can be cleaned as follows (instructions are usually printed on the packaging):

wash with warm water and soap. Flush with clean water. Then dunk it into a solution of 1 part bleach to 64 parts of water for 10 minutes. Flush again with clean water and let it air-dry.

The one-way valve can be used repeatedly on training with a manikin, but it needs to be replaced after use on a real person.


Perhaps it's better to order a mask specifically for training purposes and one for 'real' use? Their not THAT expensive..

The only reason that you have to replace the masks after the real person is because they have their secretions and vomit on them correct? You aren't really worried about the one way valve part however. Please if I am wrong let me know!

Correct, but also because they breathed (sp?) into the mask. The mask itself is easy to clean, but cleaning the one-way valve would be unpractical and possibly damaging to the valve itself. Therefor the valve is a disposable item.

But is it still ok to use the valve I used in training?

We do chest compressions only now 200 in a row. Seems to work better, esp. with an AED.

CPR had less than a 2% success rate in survival to hospital, compression-only is closer to 6%

"...CPR had less than a 2% success rate in survival to hospital, compression-only is closer to 6%..."

That is very interesting. Do you do compression only even if you do not see the victim go down???

OBG, some EMS systems are playing with compression-heavy CPR. I believe Arizona and Minnesota both have systems that are doing the 200 cycle/ 2 breaths (IIRC) cpr. I've seen resus. rates approaching 10-20%, but that might just be biased stats. Anyone can play with those... for example, this past year I've had a 100% resuscitation AND discharge from hospital CPR rate. Of course, I've only had 1 arrest....

As for the masks, Climberslacker, YES, you can reuse it from class. Once a real patient has used it, toss it. Even though you can sterilize them, it's like $12 for a new one. I personally wouldn't want to carry a vomit/blood/saliva filled CPR mask back to my house just to save a few bucks.

All the masks here have been OK. Personally, I carry a keychain mask with a valve in my backpack, and a BVM in my car FAK. I've already had enough traumatic arrests where a pocket mask would have had blood all over my face (gotta "love" facial trauma). I'll keep my distance, thank you very much.

"...I've only had 1 arrest..."

Lucky guy, I never had an arrest (well, not the kind of arrest we are talking about here). What I had was a whole bunch of closed head injuries (and other nasty trama), with long eta's on the ambulance, so I am batting a thousand. I lost them all...

Thanks MDinana, thats what I thought, just wanted to double check, I know this sounds a bit morbid, but now that I've learned this stuff I really want to do CPR on someone...anyone else have this feeling after learning cpr, or am I just a sick twisted person??