What is a Thumper

Morning-glory · Apr 21, 2005

A quick guess, and I may be wrong, but isn't a Thumper a CPR machine? It does chest compressions while you get on with fixing the problem.

vicsweetie · Apr 21, 2005

Could it be something used to give deep tissue massages? I got this off the internet..

have been out of the loop for a while and have discovered new terms for old treatments. Ie: AA updraft instead of HHN. And what used to be an AMBU bag was then a Bag Valve Mask.......now back to AMBU.

My question is what is a thumper? Do I already know what this is and they changed the name this week?????

sjt9721, BSN, RN · Apr 21, 2005

the thumper hasn't changed but there is a newer device on the market:

www.med-worldwide.com/product0.html

our fd calls it the "geezer-squeezer"... :rolleyes: so far it's proven to be firefighter-proof and the guys say it's easier to put in use than the ol' thumper.

FirewalkerRN · Apr 21, 2005

LMAO........geezer squeezer........that's greatness. Thanks for the replies. I have not seen nor used that device.

rjflyn, ASN, RN · Apr 21, 2005

Ah the thumper- one of those things that collected dust on the ambulance back in my full time Paramedic days.

:chuckle rj

Trauma Columnist · Apr 21, 2005

We used to have a thumper in our trauma bay. However, I have only seen it used once and the patient kept moving all over the cart - it was kinda eerie. We got rid of ours about 8 years ago!

Diane Fox · Apr 21, 2005

A thumper was used many, many eons ago. It was a device powered by compressed O2 and it literally had a powered pad placed on the patient's chest to do compressions. It was synchronised with a connector that also acted as a ventilator. You had to adjust the depth and power of the thumper to fit the profile of your patient. It was mainly used in the field so that the paramedics could have free hands to work with the patient. We had special connectors so that when a patient arrived on the thumper we could connect them and not interrupt the cycles. I have been in the ED for 30 years and never saw a patient on a thumper survive.

mommatrauma, RN · Apr 23, 2005

I've seen the thumper used one time...we used it during a "rewarming code" about 6 years ago...We had a 7 year old child who was found "unresponsive" in a walk in fridge at his parents restaurant. Turned out to be a child abuse case and the child was sent there after being beaten for disobeying his parents. Subsequently the child died but was freezing when we got him...He was in PEA on arrival and we had no idea what his downtime was as there were many conflicting stories on when he was actually sent there...anyway, we coded this child for the better part of 4 hours, we did manual CPR for the first 90 minutes when we realized we had the thumper available to us. We used that for the rest of the code which saved us huge amounts of time and manpower. Unfortunately, we still had a bad outcome, but nonetheless the thumper was very effective. I can't see it being used for conventional codes however, seems to be more trouble than its worth at that point...

stevierae · Apr 23, 2005

I've seen the thumper used one time...we used it during a "rewarming code" about 6 years ago...We had a 7 year old child who was found "unresponsive" in a walk in fridge at his parents restaurant. Turned out to be a child abuse case and the child was sent there after being beaten for disobeying his parents. Subsequently the child died but was freezing when we got him...He was in PEA on arrival and we had no idea what his downtime was as there were many conflicting stories on when he was actually sent there...anyway, we coded this child for the better part of 4 hours, we did manual CPR for the first 90 minutes when we realized we had the thumper available to us. We used that for the rest of the code which saved us huge amounts of time and manpower. Unfortunately, we still had a bad outcome, but nonetheless the thumper was very effective. I can't see it being used for conventional codes however, seems to be more trouble than its worth at that point...

Oh, man! What a tragic story! Did the parents go to prison, do you know? I certainly hope so! Imagine that poor little one, slowly freezing to death! I used to wrok at a restaurant (as a teenager) and dreaded being sent back to the walk-in---even a few seconds in there felt like you imagines Antarctica would feel. "Frigid" doesn't even describe it.

FirewalkerRN · Apr 23, 2005

I've seen the thumper used one time...we used it during a "rewarming code" about 6 years ago...We had a 7 year old child who was found "unresponsive" in a walk in fridge at his parents restaurant. Turned out to be a child abuse case and the child was sent there after being beaten for disobeying his parents. Subsequently the child died but was freezing when we got him...He was in PEA on arrival and we had no idea what his downtime was as there were many conflicting stories on when he was actually sent there...anyway, we coded this child for the better part of 4 hours, we did manual CPR for the first 90 minutes when we realized we had the thumper available to us. We used that for the rest of the code which saved us huge amounts of time and manpower. Unfortunately, we still had a bad outcome, but nonetheless the thumper was very effective. I can't see it being used for conventional codes however, seems to be more trouble than its worth at that point...

That is horrible.........!

Thanks to all who replied. I just saw the "thumper" box on our notes and wasn't sure what it was. I need to search and see if this is still around in our ED.

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Jun 9, 2005

have been out of the loop for a while and have discovered new terms for old treatments. Ie: AA updraft instead of HHN. And what used to be an AMBU bag was then a Bag Valve Mask.......now back to AMBU.
My question is what is a thumper? Do I already know what this is and they changed the name this week?????

A Thumper is that little rabbit that is Bambis Friend