October 30, 2025 • 29 mins
Matt Rasmussen TVA’s new Chief Nuclear Officer shares all the things that go into operating a Nuclear power plant, like the Browns Ferry Reactor in Limestone County. Then Bret Baier joins us to talk about his new book about President Teddy Rosevelt. Finaly Dr. Ashish Panchal from the American Heart Association explains some of the things you need to know to assist others in a medical emergency.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You may not think about it, but whenever you walk
in a room and flip on a light switch, you're
closing a circuit allowing electricity to flow from somewhere. And
if you live in North Alabama, that somewhere could be
a nuclear power plant. Hello. I'm John Mounts and this
is Viewpoint, Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network right now.
I'm pleased to introduce the new TVA Chief Nuclear Officer,
Matt Rasmussen. Matt, welcome to Viewpoint.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, I appreciate you being here.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well, I wanted to get you on because a lot
of people look over there at the Brownsberry Plant and
they go, you know, wow, look at all that big
billowing smoke coming out of that thing. I know it's
not smoke, but all that stuff coming out of that thing.
They have a lot of atoms in there, and somehow
they're making electricity with all those atoms. And you're in
charge of the making of that electricity with the atoms.
So tell me what you do. What's your job like
(00:47):
as the chief Nuclear Officer?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, so is the chief nuclear officer really like my
you know, the clinical responsibility? You know, if you were
to write it on the piece of papers. I'm responsible
for this safe and reliable operation of our seven nuclear
reactors and their associated equipment, and you know, for the safety,
the reliable operation and the overall production of those units
(01:10):
and all the people, processes and capital investments that we
do with those units.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Give me an idea of the scope of this. You
talk about seven plants, and I know in Alabama we
have two. We have Browns Ferry up and up near Athens,
Limestone County, and then we have another one I think
down near Dothan in the state of Alabama. I know
yours is the one up in the northern part of
the state. But how much energy does a plant like
say Browns Faery, How much energy does that turn out
(01:36):
and in like say a day.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So we really measure electrical output and megawatts electric So
if you think about your standard old sculpture, just a
light bulb is a sixty watt light bulb. The Browns
Ferry plant makes about thirty nine hundred megawatts of sustainable
(02:01):
high capacity factor of electricity. So you may not notice
a lot of people don't, but Brown's Fair is actually
the largest power plant in the country under one roof.
It's a really enormous plant, which is a really big
asset for us in the people of the Tennessee Valley.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Why do you think it is that, Matt? The nuclear
power is very, very safe and it's very efficient. Yet
we have not built any nuclear power plants in a
very long time in America. Is it just regulation? Is
a fear of three Mile Island? What is the concern
about nuclear power? And is it founded?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I think that it's not founded. What I will tell
you is the concern and the challenges have shifted over time,
and I think it's if you think about back in
the early eighties and the mid eighties, the concern was
around safety and left about reliability in the overall tape
because you had things like three Mile Island and Chernobyl
occur and things like that. But the industry has transformed
(03:01):
since that time. Right we been response to three Mile
Island event. We we institute something called the Institute of
Nuclear Power Operators where we go out and essentially self police.
We make sure that you know we're out bringing it
the highest standards, and the nuclear industry has done nothing
but improved in safety margins and performance since the age
has really been on a continuing proving trend. As we
(03:23):
as we drive towards excellence. But so that's recognizing that
we've built you know, trust with the with the public.
We've built trust on both sides of the aisle. To
be honest with you, in d C. We've really got
great you know great you know idle support we've got
we've gotten. Now it's a challenge of you know, the
(03:45):
cost of building one and they are expensive to build.
The price of you know, the Vogel three and four
plants that were built in Georgia recently, we're extremely high,
extremely high. And so yes, you can build a gas
plant for cheaper, you can build some other facility for cheaper,
but what you get with the nuclear plan is you
get a little higher level of reliability. And so how
(04:08):
do you balance those two things? And that's what the industry,
the public and DC are working through is how do
we how do we facilitate a structure, whether through public
and private partnerships to make new nuclear reality and also
keep electricity affordable because that's a huge part of what
we do. Right, we talk about it, you know, we
(04:29):
talk about electricity as this commodity. What I will tell
you it is, I think it's the most important asset
that we will have in our country in the next
twenty years. Because it's a scarcity, it's in Everything we
do evolves around it, revolves around it, everything we do
involves around it. So it's it's so important, But the
cost is, no doubt, and an impact. I think we've
(04:51):
gotten past the safekeeper. We've resolved a lot of those issues.
It really comes down to just how much how much
it cost to build a plant, And those are some
of the unique things that we're doing to make sure
we overcome that key power affordable for the people we serve.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
In terms of you hear a lot about other modalities
of energy creation, like you hear about windmills and solar,
but in terms of the amount of out like can
you talk about the cost of building a nuclear power plant,
But I would think that in terms of the cost
of putting up to say solar panels or wind panels
and then or windmills, but then how much generate how
much power those generate, I would imagine it's very little
(05:25):
power and in the case of solar, only when the
sun's out. In the case of wind, only when the
wind blows, and it's not a lot of power compared
to what we're able to get reliably from from a
nuclear fission plant.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
You're exactly right, John, If you think about we talk
about really elected squat put in terms of capacity factor, right,
so how through a given year? What is how long
is that plant online for a given year? So would
that be a solar field or a coal plant or
(05:58):
a gas plant or nuclear plant. So just some really
interesting numbers for people to think about. Is wind and
solar are typically going to be online twenty five to
thirty five percent of the time. So the lot of
capacity factor of twenty five to thirty five percent because
to your point, the wind's not always blowing and the
sun's not always up. That capacity factor, especially in solar,
gets lower during the winter periods where in the south
(06:19):
are our highest peaks. So that's you know, they have
to think about that. Your gas and your coal plants
are typically between the sixty and seventy five percent capacity factor,
but your nuclear plants are well above ninety five percent capacity.
So your nuclear facilities are really online there all the time,
which makes it attractive not only to how you operate
your grid, but also makes it extremely attractive to many
(06:44):
of our you know, direct utility customers or other large
base load customers who really need that constant that load
being there no matter what time of the day it is,
no matter what you know, when it is, what the
weather is. They rely on that load being there, and
so that that's really what makes nuclear such an attractive
option for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I was going to say, because electricity is one of
those on demand sort of things. Is not like water.
Water you can store it up in a tank. When
you use it, it's you know, it's it's used when
you when you cut the tap off and then it
stops flowing. But with electricity, it's not like you can
really store I mean, you have batteries, but you can't
store the amount of electricity it takes to run a household.
So you have to be creating that energy. It has
(07:25):
to be there when people flip the switch. And it's
not like you can call the plant say hey, I'm
about running the air conditioner. Can you turn up the power?
You guys have to be able to ratchet up and
down that power at people's whim when they when they
need it.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Right, we do, and we that's really well controlled. I'm
always amazed that the ability of our transmission organization to
control and manages those type things through forecasting. Our ability
to forecast different loads based off temperatures and storms and
things like that. It's just really incredible what we've been
all doing that space. But there's a reason, John, when
(07:57):
you get up to go to the restroom at two
in the morning in the light on, the light comes
on right, and that's because our employees are working hard
on back shift and rotating shift to make sure the
plants are running for us. We do have some storage
you mentioned batteries. Another facility that we have is something
called Raccoon Mountain, which is a pump storage facility, which
is a pretty unique facility where we pump water. We
(08:20):
basically have created a lake on top of a mountain.
We pump water up to the top of the mountain
and then at night when we need power or during
peak lop piers will actually turn those pumps into generators
and we allow that water from from the top of
the lake to flow down back into the river. So
it's kind of a unique natural battery if you will,
using water. But it is the grid is reliant on
(08:44):
something we called essentially inertia. It's spinning power spinning reserve
and your ability to bring units online or be online
at the right voltage is something the entire National Electric
grove relies on.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Matt.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Can you talk some about here in the Birmingham area.
They're talking about building a very large AI service center
out just kind of west of town, and they're talking
about the amount of electricity that this AI facility is
going to require, and more and more of these things
are going to go online, these huge server buildings, not
a lot of people in there, but a whole lot
of computers needing a whole lot of power. Is this
(09:18):
going to greatly increase the demand on our existing infrastructure
for creating electricity to run these gigantic computer farms.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I think without a doubt answer to that is yes,
it is. It's already increasing demand. I'll give you a
great statistic. In twenty nineteen, the load our industrial load
for data centers was essentially was one percent of our
total industrial load. It's now nineteen percent. It's outpaced all
(09:49):
of our other industrial load sector growth. And the demand
is constant. The pressure is constant to build to supply that,
and those facilities are needed like they're needed there. Important
in our job is to meet the need for that,
to establish the facilities we need to do that, and
at the same time keeping affordability in the front of
all of our thoughts and our strategies.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Matt, I know you know the nuts and bolts of this,
and that we're talking to a very wide audience, so
I don't want to go way over people's heads. But
just in terms of when we talk about creating that power,
it requires essentially your heating water, and we're using the
steam to turn turbines. But the sources used to heat
the water is something that is it's a nuclear it's
an isotope. Where do we get that resource? And are
(10:35):
we in danger of running out? Is there plenty more?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
That's a great question, and it's really appropriate timing because
the nuclear fuel supply is something that's got a lot
of interest vi elected officials. There's a lot of geopolitical
conflicts associated with it. What I will tell you is
in TVA, we're one of a few utilities that we actually
procure all of your fuel low you know, sourced in
(11:02):
North America and so we so if you think about
the fuel cycle, so if we want to you're gonna
go mine uranium. So you know, uranium is a very plentiful,
very plentiful product. You could it's it's there, re minds
are available, we can go establish new minds. It's a
very plentiful element. Then you take that uranium and then
(11:24):
you have to do a conversion process too it. So
it goes through a conversion process, then it goes to
an enrichment process where we take the uranium and it's
uranium two thirty five and thirty eight. We are rich
it to a certain percent and that gets done by
an enrichment facility. What I will tell you is across
the country, enrichment right now is a little bit of
a challenge. So many of my peer utilities have typically
(11:48):
procured fuel from Russia or other sources. While we are
in a really good position because we have not done
that historically. What we do have is that pre that
is putting pressure on the entire US supply chain to
supply that enrichment, those enrichment products. And so you're seeing
really the Tennessee Valley is really leading the charge and
developing some of that enrichment capability. And so you're seeing Urano,
(12:13):
which is announced one of the largest investments in the
Tennessee Valley and Oak Ridge to start building an enrichment facility.
You're seeing another facility outside of Patuca, Kentucky getting developed,
and so it is while supply chain is a is
a challenge right now because of the limitations for procurement
outside of the US, what we're seeing is it's driving
(12:34):
investment into US to along with companies like Urenco that
have been here for for quite a while. That you know,
I feel very confident with those investments and the strategy
that the that the enrichment organization or companies have laid
out that we're going to be successful overcoming some of
the geopolitical challenges with fuel procurement.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
And then Matt on the other side of that, after
you've used the uranium, the spent uranium, it still has
some sort of uh, it's still kind of radioactive. You
have to do something with the dispose of it. Is
disposal is that gotten easier over the years or have
we found better ways to handle that?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Well, we actually store it, so we don't we store
all of our fuel that we've used on site. So
we store the fuel that we take out from the
reactor vessels. We were essentially every time we do a
refueling outage, which is two years or eighteen months period,
we replace about one third of that fuel and so
a fuel assembly we're one full three cycles of operation.
(13:30):
And the example of our Browns Ferry units, that same
fuel assembly will run for six years in the reactor vessels.
So if you think about it, it's a tremendous amount
of energy that's that's utilized. But our current national policy
approach is to store, and the DEE is searching for
(13:51):
essentially a long term storage facility. I do like to
reinforce it to everybody. I think there's this public image
of this huge barrels of radioactive waste everywhere. You. Yeah,
you can thank the sentences for that. If you actually
come to one of our plants, which I would highly
encourage with love to have you out to one of
(14:11):
our plants, and you actually see that we've been producing
fuel at Brown's Ferry, for example, since the early seventies.
You go out to see the spent fuel power, All
the spent fuel that we've ever used is either there
or in one of the pools in the in the
building itself. It really amazes people how small that footprint is.
It really amazes people because it's just not a lot
(14:32):
of stuff. It's not it's not this vast acreage of
a radioactive waste. It all fits on a concrete pad
about the size of the football field, not a stadium,
a football field. It's about a fifty five hundred yard pad.
It's just not a small footprint. So we say, as
a country, are you know our emphasis right now is
on long term storage. What I will tell you is
(14:54):
there's a lot of renewed interest in doing something that
French do right now with almost all their fuel, which
is reprocessing their fuel. We let it cool off once
it comes out of the ractor for a while, and
then we put it in these dry cast storage containers
that are stealing case for concrete, and they sit on
this concrete pad in a very safe environment. But the
level of actual waste is so small compared to what
(15:18):
people most people think.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
TVA Chief Nuclear Officer Matt Rasmussen, thank you so much
for joining us and kind of walking through all of
these things. It sounds like nuclear power is probably the
future and it's going to be our catalyst for all
of the economic growth in America in the twenty first
century and beyond.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, I appreciate the invite, and you're exactly right. I
think it's going to be a huge part. It has
to be a part of the equation as we move forward.
We have to keep it cost effective.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And Matt, I'm encouraged that it sounds like here in
the state of Alabama, we're going to be able to
do that in part due to the efforts of people
like you with the Tennessee Valley Authority TVA Chief Nuclear
Officer Matt Rasmussen. Matt, thank you so much for joining
us this week on Viewpoint Alabama.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
All right, thank you.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
You're listening to Viewpoint in Alabama, a public affairs program
from the Alabama Radio Network.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
A president who, in my opinion, doesn't often get his
due is Teddy Roosevelt.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I'm John Mountce and this is Viewpoint Alabama on the
Alabama Radio Network, and here this morning to explore the
legacy is the chief political anchor from Fox News, Brett Bear.
Welcome to Viewpoint.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Hey, thanks, John, I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
I'm glad to have you on because you've just written
this book to rescue the American spirit. Teddy Roosevelt in
the birthplace of a superpower. It's a great time for
a book like this because right now, with a Trump presidency,
it seems like America's on the precipice of a second birth.
And Brett, you are in a great position to write this.
Compare and contrast our current president with a fellow Republican
from one hundred years earlier, who, by the way, also
(16:42):
survived an assassination attempt.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
That's right. There are some similarities, definitely. I mean, Teddy
Roosevelt is larger than life. He kind of bounces off
the page. His anecdotes of his life are really rich.
He was called at times the human cyclone. And I
can tell you that after ripping up a news rundown
six times during a day because of President Trump, there
(17:04):
is a little human cyclone with the President Trump as well.
I think that he wished Teddy Roosevelt wished to put
America on the map in the global stage by being
integral and peace deals. He does that by negotiating between
Russia and Japan as they're fighting and maybe devolving into
(17:25):
a world war. He solves it by bringing them together.
That similar in the efforts that President Trump has taken
on a piece on a number of different fronts, India, Pakistan, Congo, Rwanda.
You know Israel Hamas is trying for Russia Ukraine. So
in the same framework, Uh, they're They're a little different
(17:47):
in some some of their ideology, but they their force
of personality is very similar. I didn't write it for that.
This is actually my sixth presidential biography. I started with
Eisenhower and then Reagan, Fdr Grant. My last book was
about Washington and the Constitutional Convention, and I kind of
(18:08):
look at these soda straw moments that are overlooked in history,
and this one was Teddy Roosevelt's wish to at the
turn of the century put America on the map in
the world.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
And that's one of the things that I think Donald
Trump has also worked for. You mentioned how he was
the cyclone back over a hundred years ago before there
was Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and TikTok. But Teddy
Roosevelt also he was a master of media back in
his day as well, wasn't he He was?
Speaker 3 (18:36):
He really was. He worked the media in each one
of his jobs. You know, he was police commissioner in
New York and part of his deal is he would
go out late at night and overnight and kind of
walk the streets in this giant black trench coat and
see what the cops were doing when nobody was looking.
And he would bring with him a reporter. That reporter
(18:57):
would document some of the things, pulling corrupt cops out,
firing them. He used the press a number of times
during his life. He also went after the press. He
called the muckrakers and said they were writing the wrong things.
I mean, that's very similar to President Trump, who use
every day and says fake news. And there's a similarity
(19:18):
there too.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
When we think of the early years before he was
known as the rough rider in the Warrior. As a
young boy, Roosevelt was kind of sickly. He kind of
became a scholar at an early age, didn't.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
He He did. He was really sick kid. He had
debilitating asthma, couldn't even get out of bed, and his
mom wondered if he would amount to anything or if
he would live. He lived his early days behind a
window in a room, and they tried everything to get
at the asthma to subside, and it wasn't working, except
(19:52):
he went outdoors and he found some breath, and that
became his love is to be outdoors, and he wanted
to be a scientists and collect all these specimens and
create his own natural museum with bugs and tracking birds
and all kinds of things. So that was his early life.
There's a great picture in the Fox Nation Hour that
(20:13):
we found, which is Abraham Lincoln's funeral going up Broadway
in New York, right past the Roosevelt Brownstone. And in
the window in the picture you can see two boys,
and one of the boys is Teddy Roosevelt. And you
think about that, and the next time Teddy Roosevelt and
Abraham Lincoln would be together would be on Mount Rushmore.
(20:34):
And I think that that gives you goosebumps, because history
is cyclical and there are moments that collide, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
And Roosevelt he was not what you would call a
modern day environmentalist. He wasn't mandating the electric vehicles or
so wear panels, any of that kind of stuff. But
he was I would call him like a classic conservationist
because he had a true love for the American West,
because of, like you said, the time he spent outdoors.
But also I think he genuinely won. I wanted to
make America great, keep America great, and also protect that
(21:04):
for generations to come.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
He did. In fact, you talk about expanding executive power.
From Washington the first president, to McKinley the twenty fifth,
all of those presidents combined signed twelve hundred executive orders.
Teddy Roosevelt signed thirteen hundred executive orders. A lot of
those executive orders had to do with protecting land parks,
(21:28):
setting up the Forest Service. His love was to make
sure that America had forever those places protected.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
One of the stories I heard since I was a child,
and you can tell me if this was urban legend
or truth, that the Teddy Bear the toy was named
for Teddy Roosevelt. And there's kind of a story behind that.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
There is nineteen oh two, he's president. He goes hunting
in Mississippi, and the guys he's with are really concerned
because they're not seeing any bears to shoot a big,
big hunter And they finally find a cub and they
wrestle with it and they tie it up to a
tree and they say, mister President, there's a cub over here.
(22:10):
Shoot this cub. This will be you know your your
take today. And Roosevelt says, no, I am not shooting
a cub. Let that that bear go and it was
tied to the tree and he let they let it
go and it runs into the forest. Well, that story
gets out there, and there's a little candy store in
the Bronx that was making stuffed animals for kids, and
(22:34):
they decided to make a little bear and call it
Teddy's Bear. Then they asked Teddy Roosevelt to use the name.
He says, sure, go ahead, and they create the ideal
toy company making Teddy Bears, and that becomes a huge
hit around the world.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
And that probably led to some of his popularity for sure.
A great man and a great read to rescue the
American spirit, Teddy Roosevelt and the birth of a superpower.
It sounds like it would be a great Christmas present
for any historian on your Christmas list. Brett, thank you
so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Thanks too much for having me.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
You're listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program from
the Alabama Radio Network.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Someone is choking? Would you know what to do? I'm
John Mount and next on Viewpoint Alabama, we're talking with
doctor Ashish Panchell. He is going to bring us some
updates on some life saving techniques that we all probably
have heard about but might not know the latest practice.
Doctor Panchell, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
I actually know someone whose mother in law died passed
away at his wedding reception because she choked on something
and nobody there knew how to perform the Heimlich maneuver.
So these are all things that we hear about, but
a lot of people don't know what to do. I
know you can't provide hands on experience on the radio,
but can you kind of describe what it is that
(23:52):
people should do in these situations.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
Definitely, And this is the reason why the guidelines and
what the American Heart Association is doing. They want to
bring the newest science to everyone that's lay rescuers, healthcare professionals.
These updated life saving recommendations, just like you said, are
so important for cardiac arrests, for choking, for opiate overdose. Now,
when we think about exactly what you just described, choking,
(24:17):
that's one of these three major things. And if we
don't talk about it, if we don't learn how to
do it or at least have an idea of what
to do, You're right, these lives can be lost.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I remember I was a boy scout and I took
my first DAID merit badge. That was some thirty five
years ago. But I remember the general position of you
come behind the person, you class one hit fist with
the other hand, and you kind of shove up and in.
Has has that changed?
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Some have?
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Do they have new recommendations as to how to perform
this because we can't just wait for the paramedics it'll
be too late. Some people have to take action right
then and there.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
I love that question.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
It's the how.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
We need to know the how. And I'm going to
hit you with all three hows for cardiac arrest, for choking,
and for opioid overdose. So let's start with cardiac arrest first. Okay,
So with cardiac arrest, when you see someone who suddenly collapses,
what do you do? You prefer hands only CPR and
this is for adults and teams, and it's really straightforward.
(25:14):
You call nine to one one and you push hard
and fast in the middle of their chest. That's it,
very simple. Well, so you can do rescue breathing and
that's normally for healthcare professionals and people are trained, but
people who have no experience at all who are just
calling in a nine to one one or just are
for the first time learning about anything about it. What
(25:35):
we know is hands only CPR is just as effective
and it's the right thing to do right off the bat.
Breast breathing is very important, especially for certain problems like
drowning or even choking for that matter, or opiod overdose,
and that you're going to have to give it. But
if you can just start with hands only CPR, that's
enough to get things started. Now, what about choking. I
(25:58):
want to hit your choking question. So the new updates
for choking actually emphasize a new way to go about
doing this. It is repeated cycles of five back blows
followed by five abdominal thrust and that's in adults and children.
In infants, this is the caveat five back blows by
followed by five chest thrusts, because you want to maintain
(26:21):
that vulnerable abdomen So you're hearing the difference here is
not just the himeleight. It's the five back blows first.
And the reason behind that is the evidence was clear
that those are more effective than abdominal thrusts to get
that foreign body out of the airway.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
When we say back blow, where where are we talking
about hitting? Like the square in between the shoulder blades.
Speaker 5 (26:42):
Yep, a good solid slap between the shoulder blades is
exactly how people have described it.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
So and then followed follow that with the with the position,
with the with the fist just below the sternum.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
That's exactly right. That would be your abdominal thrust, right,
And so that way you put the whole picture together.
You have the backloads, the five backloads, and it's almost
natural to want to pat someone on the back when
they have this choking episode. That makes it easy to remember,
easy to do. And then you follow it would buy
the abdominal thrust, which would be the concept of the heimlick,
(27:14):
So that you're pulling these different things together again, five backloads,
five abdominal thrust for adults and children.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
What about if you're by yourself you find yourself choking.
It used to be there was a method where if
you had a chair, you could perform the heimlick on
yourself using your own fist in the back of a chair.
Is that still the recommended method there?
Speaker 5 (27:34):
Yeah, that's a great question, and there is not great
evidence about the best way to get a foreign body
out of yourself when you're by yourself. Why is that
the case because no one's there to see or figure
out what's going on.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Right.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
So yeah, so some of that stuff that we've talked
about in the past is still completely completely legitimate since
we don't have any better evidence yet.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
So all these things that we're talking about today, you said,
we're talking about the AMA Heart Associate and came out
with this advice. So is it on the American Heart
Association's website. People can read up on this stuff.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
That's exactly correct. So if you wanted to learn more,
you can go to heart dot org slash nation. That's
heart dot org slash nation and you can join the
Nation of Life Savers and learn all about these kind
of things. One of the important things to keep in
mind is so many of these events happen in the home,
and it'll be your family, your moms, your dad, your aunts,
your uncles. So learn this, learn it before the holidays,
(28:28):
talk about it during the holidays. Be that person. And
that way, if the person you save through what you
learn could be.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
One of your loved ones.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
That's that's very true as well. And I imagine also
it'ld be a good idea for people to get CPR certified,
and I know Red Cross does a great deal of
that sort of thing, but you can find somebody in
your local town to get certifications so that you're able
to get hands on training with the anti doll and
be actually able to do this. You have a little
bit of experience as opposed to just what you heard
(28:57):
in a six minute radio interview exactly.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
So much of this leans on the need that we
know CPR saved lives. We need it to support everyone
to learn CPR so that we ensure that everyone who
needs CPR received it, and it starts by learning it yourself.
Take a CPR class, go to AHA, go wherever you
need to go to learn how to do CPR. And
the key concept here is the American Heart Association's new
(29:23):
evidence is implanted in all of this, so you will
know exactly what your role is in the chain of
survival so you can actually.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Save a life.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Doctor is schues Panio, thank you so much for joining
us this week on Viewpoint Alabama.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Hey, it's my pleasure, thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
You've been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program
from the Alabama Radio Network. The opinions expressed on Viewpoint
Alabama are not necessarily those of the staff, management, or
advertisers of this station.
You may not think about it, but whenever you walk
in a room and flip on a light switch, you're
closing a circuit allowing electricity to flow from somewhere. And
if you live in North Alabama, that somewhere could be
a nuclear power plant. Hello. I'm John Mounts and this
is Viewpoint, Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network right now.
I'm pleased to introduce the new TVA Chief Nuclear Officer,
Matt Rasmussen. Matt, welcome to Viewpoint.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, I appreciate you being here.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well, I wanted to get you on because a lot
of people look over there at the Brownsberry Plant and
they go, you know, wow, look at all that big
billowing smoke coming out of that thing. I know it's
not smoke, but all that stuff coming out of that thing.
They have a lot of atoms in there, and somehow
they're making electricity with all those atoms. And you're in
charge of the making of that electricity with the atoms.
So tell me what you do. What's your job like
(00:47):
as the chief Nuclear Officer?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, so is the chief nuclear officer really like my
you know, the clinical responsibility? You know, if you were
to write it on the piece of papers. I'm responsible
for this safe and reliable operation of our seven nuclear
reactors and their associated equipment, and you know, for the safety,
the reliable operation and the overall production of those units
(01:10):
and all the people, processes and capital investments that we
do with those units.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Give me an idea of the scope of this. You
talk about seven plants, and I know in Alabama we
have two. We have Browns Ferry up and up near Athens,
Limestone County, and then we have another one I think
down near Dothan in the state of Alabama. I know
yours is the one up in the northern part of
the state. But how much energy does a plant like
say Browns Faery, How much energy does that turn out
(01:36):
and in like say a day.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So we really measure electrical output and megawatts electric So
if you think about your standard old sculpture, just a
light bulb is a sixty watt light bulb. The Browns
Ferry plant makes about thirty nine hundred megawatts of sustainable
(02:01):
high capacity factor of electricity. So you may not notice
a lot of people don't, but Brown's Fair is actually
the largest power plant in the country under one roof.
It's a really enormous plant, which is a really big
asset for us in the people of the Tennessee Valley.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Why do you think it is that, Matt? The nuclear
power is very, very safe and it's very efficient. Yet
we have not built any nuclear power plants in a
very long time in America. Is it just regulation? Is
a fear of three Mile Island? What is the concern
about nuclear power? And is it founded?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I think that it's not founded. What I will tell
you is the concern and the challenges have shifted over time,
and I think it's if you think about back in
the early eighties and the mid eighties, the concern was
around safety and left about reliability in the overall tape
because you had things like three Mile Island and Chernobyl
occur and things like that. But the industry has transformed
(03:01):
since that time. Right we been response to three Mile
Island event. We we institute something called the Institute of
Nuclear Power Operators where we go out and essentially self police.
We make sure that you know we're out bringing it
the highest standards, and the nuclear industry has done nothing
but improved in safety margins and performance since the age
has really been on a continuing proving trend. As we
(03:23):
as we drive towards excellence. But so that's recognizing that
we've built you know, trust with the with the public.
We've built trust on both sides of the aisle. To
be honest with you, in d C. We've really got
great you know great you know idle support we've got
we've gotten. Now it's a challenge of you know, the
(03:45):
cost of building one and they are expensive to build.
The price of you know, the Vogel three and four
plants that were built in Georgia recently, we're extremely high,
extremely high. And so yes, you can build a gas
plant for cheaper, you can build some other facility for cheaper,
but what you get with the nuclear plan is you
get a little higher level of reliability. And so how
(04:08):
do you balance those two things? And that's what the industry,
the public and DC are working through is how do
we how do we facilitate a structure, whether through public
and private partnerships to make new nuclear reality and also
keep electricity affordable because that's a huge part of what
we do. Right, we talk about it, you know, we
(04:29):
talk about electricity as this commodity. What I will tell
you it is, I think it's the most important asset
that we will have in our country in the next
twenty years. Because it's a scarcity, it's in Everything we
do evolves around it, revolves around it, everything we do
involves around it. So it's it's so important, But the
cost is, no doubt, and an impact. I think we've
(04:51):
gotten past the safekeeper. We've resolved a lot of those issues.
It really comes down to just how much how much
it cost to build a plant, And those are some
of the unique things that we're doing to make sure
we overcome that key power affordable for the people we serve.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
In terms of you hear a lot about other modalities
of energy creation, like you hear about windmills and solar,
but in terms of the amount of out like can
you talk about the cost of building a nuclear power plant,
But I would think that in terms of the cost
of putting up to say solar panels or wind panels
and then or windmills, but then how much generate how
much power those generate, I would imagine it's very little
(05:25):
power and in the case of solar, only when the
sun's out. In the case of wind, only when the
wind blows, and it's not a lot of power compared
to what we're able to get reliably from from a
nuclear fission plant.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
You're exactly right, John, If you think about we talk
about really elected squat put in terms of capacity factor, right,
so how through a given year? What is how long
is that plant online for a given year? So would
that be a solar field or a coal plant or
(05:58):
a gas plant or nuclear plant. So just some really
interesting numbers for people to think about. Is wind and
solar are typically going to be online twenty five to
thirty five percent of the time. So the lot of
capacity factor of twenty five to thirty five percent because
to your point, the wind's not always blowing and the
sun's not always up. That capacity factor, especially in solar,
gets lower during the winter periods where in the south
(06:19):
are our highest peaks. So that's you know, they have
to think about that. Your gas and your coal plants
are typically between the sixty and seventy five percent capacity factor,
but your nuclear plants are well above ninety five percent capacity.
So your nuclear facilities are really online there all the time,
which makes it attractive not only to how you operate
your grid, but also makes it extremely attractive to many
(06:44):
of our you know, direct utility customers or other large
base load customers who really need that constant that load
being there no matter what time of the day it is,
no matter what you know, when it is, what the
weather is. They rely on that load being there, and
so that that's really what makes nuclear such an attractive
option for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I was going to say, because electricity is one of
those on demand sort of things. Is not like water.
Water you can store it up in a tank. When
you use it, it's you know, it's it's used when
you when you cut the tap off and then it
stops flowing. But with electricity, it's not like you can
really store I mean, you have batteries, but you can't
store the amount of electricity it takes to run a household.
So you have to be creating that energy. It has
(07:25):
to be there when people flip the switch. And it's
not like you can call the plant say hey, I'm
about running the air conditioner. Can you turn up the power?
You guys have to be able to ratchet up and
down that power at people's whim when they when they
need it.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Right, we do, and we that's really well controlled. I'm
always amazed that the ability of our transmission organization to
control and manages those type things through forecasting. Our ability
to forecast different loads based off temperatures and storms and
things like that. It's just really incredible what we've been
all doing that space. But there's a reason, John, when
(07:57):
you get up to go to the restroom at two
in the morning in the light on, the light comes
on right, and that's because our employees are working hard
on back shift and rotating shift to make sure the
plants are running for us. We do have some storage
you mentioned batteries. Another facility that we have is something
called Raccoon Mountain, which is a pump storage facility, which
is a pretty unique facility where we pump water. We
(08:20):
basically have created a lake on top of a mountain.
We pump water up to the top of the mountain
and then at night when we need power or during
peak lop piers will actually turn those pumps into generators
and we allow that water from from the top of
the lake to flow down back into the river. So
it's kind of a unique natural battery if you will,
using water. But it is the grid is reliant on
(08:44):
something we called essentially inertia. It's spinning power spinning reserve
and your ability to bring units online or be online
at the right voltage is something the entire National Electric
grove relies on.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Matt.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Can you talk some about here in the Birmingham area.
They're talking about building a very large AI service center
out just kind of west of town, and they're talking
about the amount of electricity that this AI facility is
going to require, and more and more of these things
are going to go online, these huge server buildings, not
a lot of people in there, but a whole lot
of computers needing a whole lot of power. Is this
(09:18):
going to greatly increase the demand on our existing infrastructure
for creating electricity to run these gigantic computer farms.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
I think without a doubt answer to that is yes,
it is. It's already increasing demand. I'll give you a
great statistic. In twenty nineteen, the load our industrial load
for data centers was essentially was one percent of our
total industrial load. It's now nineteen percent. It's outpaced all
(09:49):
of our other industrial load sector growth. And the demand
is constant. The pressure is constant to build to supply that,
and those facilities are needed like they're needed there. Important
in our job is to meet the need for that,
to establish the facilities we need to do that, and
at the same time keeping affordability in the front of
all of our thoughts and our strategies.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Matt, I know you know the nuts and bolts of this,
and that we're talking to a very wide audience, so
I don't want to go way over people's heads. But
just in terms of when we talk about creating that power,
it requires essentially your heating water, and we're using the
steam to turn turbines. But the sources used to heat
the water is something that is it's a nuclear it's
an isotope. Where do we get that resource? And are
(10:35):
we in danger of running out? Is there plenty more?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
That's a great question, and it's really appropriate timing because
the nuclear fuel supply is something that's got a lot
of interest vi elected officials. There's a lot of geopolitical
conflicts associated with it. What I will tell you is
in TVA, we're one of a few utilities that we actually
procure all of your fuel low you know, sourced in
(11:02):
North America and so we so if you think about
the fuel cycle, so if we want to you're gonna
go mine uranium. So you know, uranium is a very plentiful,
very plentiful product. You could it's it's there, re minds
are available, we can go establish new minds. It's a
very plentiful element. Then you take that uranium and then
(11:24):
you have to do a conversion process too it. So
it goes through a conversion process, then it goes to
an enrichment process where we take the uranium and it's
uranium two thirty five and thirty eight. We are rich
it to a certain percent and that gets done by
an enrichment facility. What I will tell you is across
the country, enrichment right now is a little bit of
a challenge. So many of my peer utilities have typically
(11:48):
procured fuel from Russia or other sources. While we are
in a really good position because we have not done
that historically. What we do have is that pre that
is putting pressure on the entire US supply chain to
supply that enrichment, those enrichment products. And so you're seeing
really the Tennessee Valley is really leading the charge and
developing some of that enrichment capability. And so you're seeing Urano,
(12:13):
which is announced one of the largest investments in the
Tennessee Valley and Oak Ridge to start building an enrichment facility.
You're seeing another facility outside of Patuca, Kentucky getting developed,
and so it is while supply chain is a is
a challenge right now because of the limitations for procurement
outside of the US, what we're seeing is it's driving
(12:34):
investment into US to along with companies like Urenco that
have been here for for quite a while. That you know,
I feel very confident with those investments and the strategy
that the that the enrichment organization or companies have laid
out that we're going to be successful overcoming some of
the geopolitical challenges with fuel procurement.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
And then Matt on the other side of that, after
you've used the uranium, the spent uranium, it still has
some sort of uh, it's still kind of radioactive. You
have to do something with the dispose of it. Is
disposal is that gotten easier over the years or have
we found better ways to handle that?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Well, we actually store it, so we don't we store
all of our fuel that we've used on site. So
we store the fuel that we take out from the
reactor vessels. We were essentially every time we do a
refueling outage, which is two years or eighteen months period,
we replace about one third of that fuel and so
a fuel assembly we're one full three cycles of operation.
(13:30):
And the example of our Browns Ferry units, that same
fuel assembly will run for six years in the reactor vessels.
So if you think about it, it's a tremendous amount
of energy that's that's utilized. But our current national policy
approach is to store, and the DEE is searching for
(13:51):
essentially a long term storage facility. I do like to
reinforce it to everybody. I think there's this public image
of this huge barrels of radioactive waste everywhere. You. Yeah,
you can thank the sentences for that. If you actually
come to one of our plants, which I would highly
encourage with love to have you out to one of
(14:11):
our plants, and you actually see that we've been producing
fuel at Brown's Ferry, for example, since the early seventies.
You go out to see the spent fuel power, All
the spent fuel that we've ever used is either there
or in one of the pools in the in the
building itself. It really amazes people how small that footprint is.
It really amazes people because it's just not a lot
(14:32):
of stuff. It's not it's not this vast acreage of
a radioactive waste. It all fits on a concrete pad
about the size of the football field, not a stadium,
a football field. It's about a fifty five hundred yard pad.
It's just not a small footprint. So we say, as
a country, are you know our emphasis right now is
on long term storage. What I will tell you is
(14:54):
there's a lot of renewed interest in doing something that
French do right now with almost all their fuel, which
is reprocessing their fuel. We let it cool off once
it comes out of the ractor for a while, and
then we put it in these dry cast storage containers
that are stealing case for concrete, and they sit on
this concrete pad in a very safe environment. But the
level of actual waste is so small compared to what
(15:18):
people most people think.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
TVA Chief Nuclear Officer Matt Rasmussen, thank you so much
for joining us and kind of walking through all of
these things. It sounds like nuclear power is probably the
future and it's going to be our catalyst for all
of the economic growth in America in the twenty first
century and beyond.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, I appreciate the invite, and you're exactly right. I
think it's going to be a huge part. It has
to be a part of the equation as we move forward.
We have to keep it cost effective.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And Matt, I'm encouraged that it sounds like here in
the state of Alabama, we're going to be able to
do that in part due to the efforts of people
like you with the Tennessee Valley Authority TVA Chief Nuclear
Officer Matt Rasmussen. Matt, thank you so much for joining
us this week on Viewpoint Alabama.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
All right, thank you.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
You're listening to Viewpoint in Alabama, a public affairs program
from the Alabama Radio Network.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
A president who, in my opinion, doesn't often get his
due is Teddy Roosevelt.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I'm John Mountce and this is Viewpoint Alabama on the
Alabama Radio Network, and here this morning to explore the
legacy is the chief political anchor from Fox News, Brett Bear.
Welcome to Viewpoint.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Hey, thanks, John, I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
I'm glad to have you on because you've just written
this book to rescue the American spirit. Teddy Roosevelt in
the birthplace of a superpower. It's a great time for
a book like this because right now, with a Trump presidency,
it seems like America's on the precipice of a second birth.
And Brett, you are in a great position to write this.
Compare and contrast our current president with a fellow Republican
from one hundred years earlier, who, by the way, also
(16:42):
survived an assassination attempt.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
That's right. There are some similarities, definitely. I mean, Teddy
Roosevelt is larger than life. He kind of bounces off
the page. His anecdotes of his life are really rich.
He was called at times the human cyclone. And I
can tell you that after ripping up a news rundown
six times during a day because of President Trump, there
(17:04):
is a little human cyclone with the President Trump as well.
I think that he wished Teddy Roosevelt wished to put
America on the map in the global stage by being
integral and peace deals. He does that by negotiating between
Russia and Japan as they're fighting and maybe devolving into
(17:25):
a world war. He solves it by bringing them together.
That similar in the efforts that President Trump has taken
on a piece on a number of different fronts, India, Pakistan, Congo, Rwanda.
You know Israel Hamas is trying for Russia Ukraine. So
in the same framework, Uh, they're They're a little different
(17:47):
in some some of their ideology, but they their force
of personality is very similar. I didn't write it for that.
This is actually my sixth presidential biography. I started with
Eisenhower and then Reagan, Fdr Grant. My last book was
about Washington and the Constitutional Convention, and I kind of
(18:08):
look at these soda straw moments that are overlooked in history,
and this one was Teddy Roosevelt's wish to at the
turn of the century put America on the map in
the world.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
And that's one of the things that I think Donald
Trump has also worked for. You mentioned how he was
the cyclone back over a hundred years ago before there
was Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and TikTok. But Teddy
Roosevelt also he was a master of media back in
his day as well, wasn't he He was?
Speaker 3 (18:36):
He really was. He worked the media in each one
of his jobs. You know, he was police commissioner in
New York and part of his deal is he would
go out late at night and overnight and kind of
walk the streets in this giant black trench coat and
see what the cops were doing when nobody was looking.
And he would bring with him a reporter. That reporter
(18:57):
would document some of the things, pulling corrupt cops out,
firing them. He used the press a number of times
during his life. He also went after the press. He
called the muckrakers and said they were writing the wrong things.
I mean, that's very similar to President Trump, who use
every day and says fake news. And there's a similarity
(19:18):
there too.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
When we think of the early years before he was
known as the rough rider in the Warrior. As a
young boy, Roosevelt was kind of sickly. He kind of
became a scholar at an early age, didn't.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
He He did. He was really sick kid. He had
debilitating asthma, couldn't even get out of bed, and his
mom wondered if he would amount to anything or if
he would live. He lived his early days behind a
window in a room, and they tried everything to get
at the asthma to subside, and it wasn't working, except
(19:52):
he went outdoors and he found some breath, and that
became his love is to be outdoors, and he wanted
to be a scientists and collect all these specimens and
create his own natural museum with bugs and tracking birds
and all kinds of things. So that was his early life.
There's a great picture in the Fox Nation Hour that
(20:13):
we found, which is Abraham Lincoln's funeral going up Broadway
in New York, right past the Roosevelt Brownstone. And in
the window in the picture you can see two boys,
and one of the boys is Teddy Roosevelt. And you
think about that, and the next time Teddy Roosevelt and
Abraham Lincoln would be together would be on Mount Rushmore.
(20:34):
And I think that that gives you goosebumps, because history
is cyclical and there are moments that collide, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
And Roosevelt he was not what you would call a
modern day environmentalist. He wasn't mandating the electric vehicles or
so wear panels, any of that kind of stuff. But
he was I would call him like a classic conservationist
because he had a true love for the American West,
because of, like you said, the time he spent outdoors.
But also I think he genuinely won. I wanted to
make America great, keep America great, and also protect that
(21:04):
for generations to come.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
He did. In fact, you talk about expanding executive power.
From Washington the first president, to McKinley the twenty fifth,
all of those presidents combined signed twelve hundred executive orders.
Teddy Roosevelt signed thirteen hundred executive orders. A lot of
those executive orders had to do with protecting land parks,
(21:28):
setting up the Forest Service. His love was to make
sure that America had forever those places protected.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
One of the stories I heard since I was a child,
and you can tell me if this was urban legend
or truth, that the Teddy Bear the toy was named
for Teddy Roosevelt. And there's kind of a story behind that.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
There is nineteen oh two, he's president. He goes hunting
in Mississippi, and the guys he's with are really concerned
because they're not seeing any bears to shoot a big,
big hunter And they finally find a cub and they
wrestle with it and they tie it up to a
tree and they say, mister President, there's a cub over here.
(22:10):
Shoot this cub. This will be you know your your
take today. And Roosevelt says, no, I am not shooting
a cub. Let that that bear go and it was
tied to the tree and he let they let it
go and it runs into the forest. Well, that story
gets out there, and there's a little candy store in
the Bronx that was making stuffed animals for kids, and
(22:34):
they decided to make a little bear and call it
Teddy's Bear. Then they asked Teddy Roosevelt to use the name.
He says, sure, go ahead, and they create the ideal
toy company making Teddy Bears, and that becomes a huge
hit around the world.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
And that probably led to some of his popularity for sure.
A great man and a great read to rescue the
American spirit, Teddy Roosevelt and the birth of a superpower.
It sounds like it would be a great Christmas present
for any historian on your Christmas list. Brett, thank you
so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Thanks too much for having me.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
You're listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program from
the Alabama Radio Network.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Someone is choking? Would you know what to do? I'm
John Mount and next on Viewpoint Alabama, we're talking with
doctor Ashish Panchell. He is going to bring us some
updates on some life saving techniques that we all probably
have heard about but might not know the latest practice.
Doctor Panchell, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
I actually know someone whose mother in law died passed
away at his wedding reception because she choked on something
and nobody there knew how to perform the Heimlich maneuver.
So these are all things that we hear about, but
a lot of people don't know what to do. I
know you can't provide hands on experience on the radio,
but can you kind of describe what it is that
(23:52):
people should do in these situations.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
Definitely, And this is the reason why the guidelines and
what the American Heart Association is doing. They want to
bring the newest science to everyone that's lay rescuers, healthcare professionals.
These updated life saving recommendations, just like you said, are
so important for cardiac arrests, for choking, for opiate overdose. Now,
when we think about exactly what you just described, choking,
(24:17):
that's one of these three major things. And if we
don't talk about it, if we don't learn how to
do it or at least have an idea of what
to do, You're right, these lives can be lost.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
I remember I was a boy scout and I took
my first DAID merit badge. That was some thirty five
years ago. But I remember the general position of you
come behind the person, you class one hit fist with
the other hand, and you kind of shove up and in.
Has has that changed?
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Some have?
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Do they have new recommendations as to how to perform
this because we can't just wait for the paramedics it'll
be too late. Some people have to take action right
then and there.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
I love that question.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
It's the how.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
We need to know the how. And I'm going to
hit you with all three hows for cardiac arrest, for choking,
and for opioid overdose. So let's start with cardiac arrest first. Okay,
So with cardiac arrest, when you see someone who suddenly collapses,
what do you do? You prefer hands only CPR and
this is for adults and teams, and it's really straightforward.
(25:14):
You call nine to one one and you push hard
and fast in the middle of their chest. That's it,
very simple. Well, so you can do rescue breathing and
that's normally for healthcare professionals and people are trained, but
people who have no experience at all who are just
calling in a nine to one one or just are
for the first time learning about anything about it. What
(25:35):
we know is hands only CPR is just as effective
and it's the right thing to do right off the bat.
Breast breathing is very important, especially for certain problems like
drowning or even choking for that matter, or opiod overdose,
and that you're going to have to give it. But
if you can just start with hands only CPR, that's
enough to get things started. Now, what about choking. I
(25:58):
want to hit your choking question. So the new updates
for choking actually emphasize a new way to go about
doing this. It is repeated cycles of five back blows
followed by five abdominal thrust and that's in adults and children.
In infants, this is the caveat five back blows by
followed by five chest thrusts, because you want to maintain
(26:21):
that vulnerable abdomen So you're hearing the difference here is
not just the himeleight. It's the five back blows first.
And the reason behind that is the evidence was clear
that those are more effective than abdominal thrusts to get
that foreign body out of the airway.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
When we say back blow, where where are we talking
about hitting? Like the square in between the shoulder blades.
Speaker 5 (26:42):
Yep, a good solid slap between the shoulder blades is
exactly how people have described it.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
So and then followed follow that with the with the position,
with the with the fist just below the sternum.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
That's exactly right. That would be your abdominal thrust, right,
And so that way you put the whole picture together.
You have the backloads, the five backloads, and it's almost
natural to want to pat someone on the back when
they have this choking episode. That makes it easy to remember,
easy to do. And then you follow it would buy
the abdominal thrust, which would be the concept of the heimlick,
(27:14):
So that you're pulling these different things together again, five backloads,
five abdominal thrust for adults and children.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
What about if you're by yourself you find yourself choking.
It used to be there was a method where if
you had a chair, you could perform the heimlick on
yourself using your own fist in the back of a chair.
Is that still the recommended method there?
Speaker 5 (27:34):
Yeah, that's a great question, and there is not great
evidence about the best way to get a foreign body
out of yourself when you're by yourself. Why is that
the case because no one's there to see or figure
out what's going on.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Right.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
So yeah, so some of that stuff that we've talked
about in the past is still completely completely legitimate since
we don't have any better evidence yet.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
So all these things that we're talking about today, you said,
we're talking about the AMA Heart Associate and came out
with this advice. So is it on the American Heart
Association's website. People can read up on this stuff.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
That's exactly correct. So if you wanted to learn more,
you can go to heart dot org slash nation. That's
heart dot org slash nation and you can join the
Nation of Life Savers and learn all about these kind
of things. One of the important things to keep in
mind is so many of these events happen in the home,
and it'll be your family, your moms, your dad, your aunts,
your uncles. So learn this, learn it before the holidays,
(28:28):
talk about it during the holidays. Be that person. And
that way, if the person you save through what you
learn could be.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
One of your loved ones.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
That's that's very true as well. And I imagine also
it'ld be a good idea for people to get CPR certified,
and I know Red Cross does a great deal of
that sort of thing, but you can find somebody in
your local town to get certifications so that you're able
to get hands on training with the anti doll and
be actually able to do this. You have a little
bit of experience as opposed to just what you heard
(28:57):
in a six minute radio interview exactly.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
So much of this leans on the need that we
know CPR saved lives. We need it to support everyone
to learn CPR so that we ensure that everyone who
needs CPR received it, and it starts by learning it yourself.
Take a CPR class, go to AHA, go wherever you
need to go to learn how to do CPR. And
the key concept here is the American Heart Association's new
(29:23):
evidence is implanted in all of this, so you will
know exactly what your role is in the chain of
survival so you can actually.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Save a life.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Doctor is schues Panio, thank you so much for joining
us this week on Viewpoint Alabama.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Hey, it's my pleasure, thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
You've been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program
from the Alabama Radio Network. The opinions expressed on Viewpoint
Alabama are not necessarily those of the staff, management, or
advertisers of this station.
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