Annie, Are You Okay? The Face Of Rescue Annie
Bizarre Buffet
A Podcast Of All You Can Eat Weird
The morbid origins of a famous doll, a famous CPR doll….
Resusci Anne, also known as Rescue Anne, Resusci Annie, CPR Annie, Resuscitation Annie, Little Annie, or CPR Doll is a model of medical simulator used for teaching both emergency workers and members of the general public. Resusci Anne was developed by the Norwegian toy maker Åsmund S. Lærdal and the Austrian-Czech physician Peter Safar and American physician James Elam,[1][2][3] and is produced by the company Laerdal Medical.
The distinctive face of Resusci Anne was based on L’Inconnue de la Seine (English: The unknown woman of Seine), the death mask of an unidentified young woman reputedly drowned in the River Seine around the late 1880s.[2][4]
Listen To ” Annie, Are You Okay ? The Face Of Rescue Annie” Right Here !
Find Your Preferred Streaming Platform
Follow Bizarre Buffet Online
- Watch This Episode On YouTube
- Bizarre Buffet Online
- Follow Bizarre Buffet Online
- Like Bizarre Buffet On Facebook
- Support Bizarre Buffet On Patreon
” Annie, Are You Okay? The Face Of Rescue Annie” – Episode Credits
Hosted By Mark Tauriello , Jen Wilson , & Marc Bluestein .
Original Episode Art By Mark Tauriello
Original Episode & Story Concept By Jen Wilson
Episode Production By Marc Bluestein
” Annie, Are You Okay? The Face Of Rescue Annie ” – Show Notes
Question
Have you ever been through a CPR training ?
What if I told you that the CPR dummy, the world’s most kissed girl, is actually the face of a 19th century teen who drowned ?!
Resusci Anne
Resusci Anne aka Rescue Anne aka CPR Annie aka CPR doll was a young girl presumed to be a teenager who drowned herself in the Seine River in Paris, France. She was predicted to be around 16 years old.
When authorities pulled her out of the river, and put her on public display in a mortuary, no one came to identify her. A parade of nameless corpses were very popular during that time. And honestly I think that was smart ! With no technology, what a smart way to identify missing people.
Nobody knows anything about her name, her background, what brought her to Paris, or if she committed suicide or not. She was named L’Inconnue de la Seine (in English) “The Unknown Woman of the Seine”.
What follows is a story that has been told for 150 years.
Although this girl was never identified, she DID NOT go unnoticed. It has been stated that even in death, her serene appearance turned heads. One of those
heads belonged to a an attendant of the mortuary was so infatuated with her, that he ordered a plaster cast to be made of her face.
IT WAS A HIT ! Very soon, the face became an item sold in souvenir shops across Paris, then Germany, and then the rest of Europe.
She became a cultural icon ! Author and Philosopher Albert Camus quoted her as the “drowned Mona Lisa”.
In time, this face hung on mantles, and drawing rooms all over the continent. She was positioned in artist’s workshops as a motionless model. She also attracted poets and writers who wrote countless dramatic histories from a heartbroken heroine to engulfed by ill fortune. Because her background was so scarce, writers were able to project whatever they wanted with the inspiration of this motionless yet angelic face.
Asmund Laerdal
Over a half a century later, in the early 1940s, Asmund Laerdal, a toy manufacturer from Norway began to experiment with a new material…….PLASTIC ! With this new found discovered material, he created the “Anne Doll”, which at the time was the “toy of the year” in Norway. It had natural hair and eyes that opened and closed.
Then one tragic day, his two year old son nearly drowned. Luckily Asmund was present and rescued his son and was able to release the water from his lungs. If
Asmund had not been present, his son’s fate may have turned out differently.
A group of doctors approached Asmund and told them they needed a doll to demonstrate a new found technique, called CPR which because of past events, he was attentive and eager.
Asmund worked alongside a team of researchers and physicians to create the CPR mannequin, which we all know to be a life sized mannequin that people could practice this new found technique on.
What I am about to share with you is an excerpt from an article from “ Science Alert”
“For a toymaker accustomed to manufacturing miniature cars and play-dolls, it was a challenge to make a realistic, functional mannequin; one that could reliably demonstrate the physical complexities of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Aside from the technical issues, what kind of face would he give to this giant doll?
That’s when Laerdal recalled a strange, enigmatic half-smile. A serene mask he’d seen hanging on the wall at his in-laws’ house.
It was, of course, L’Inconnue.
Laerdal kept the name of his Anne doll, but gave the new mannequin L’Inconnue’s face, along with a body of full sized adult dimensions – including a collapsible chest for practising compressions, and open lips to simulate mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
Asmund insisted that the doll be female because it was the 1960s and thought that men would not want to put their lips on another man’s lips, even if it was a mannequin.
Resusci Anne isn’t the only mannequin on the market now, BUT she is considered THE FIRST CPR MANNEQUIN CREATED !
Today the Laderal company estimates over two million lives have been saved thanks to CPR.
IN POPULAR CULTURE The lyric “Annie, are you OK?” from the Michael Jackson song “Smooth Criminal” actually stems from American CPR training, in which students practise speaking to their unresponsive plastic patient, CPR Annie.
Subscribe/Follow
