 Knowing what that phrase means could someday make the difference between life and death for someone you love. It’s the foundation for a new, modified form of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), adopted by the American Heart Association (AHA).
“Performing compressions is clearly the most important part of the resuscitation. Without them, a cardiac arrest victim’s chances of survival are close to zero,” said Dan Davis M.D., emergency medicine specialist at UC San Diego Medical Center. As Director of the UC San Diego Resuscitation Science and Training Institute, Davis is teaching this new CPR across the state. This version concentrates on chest compressions, not mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which is the factor that most often keeps bystanders from getting involved.
According to the AHA, about 75 percent to 80 percent of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen at home. And approximately 95 percent of those victims die before reaching the hospital.
But, when bystanders provide CPR immediately after cardiac arrest, the victim’s chance of survival increases dramatically. Davis’ San Diego study showed that when cardiac-arrest victims had bystander CPR prior to defibrillation by paramedics, their chance of survival was almost 25%. Without bystander CPR, the chance of survival was 0%.
“All 450 San Diego city paramedics have been trained in the new CPR technique,” said James Dunford, M.D., emergency physician at UC San Diego Medical Center and city medical director. As President of the San Diego AHA board, Dunford is devoted to promoting CPR awareness and teaches people “… to remember the beat from the Bee Gees song ‘Stayin’ Alive.’ That gets you 100 compressions per minute.”
What to Do
- Make sure the person in question is not responsive.
- Place the victim on their back, tilt the head backward, and lift the chin.
- Look, listen, and feel for breath. If the victim is not breathing, CALL 9-1-1.
- Begin CPR immediately. Place your hands over the center of the chest, just below the nipple line. Push the chest all the way down (usually about two inches for an adult) and allow the chest to “spring” back up before pushing down again. Aim for 100 compressions per minute. Keep going until emergency help arrives.
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