Living Well

By Mahesh Tipirneni and Deepali Rastogi

Each year, an estimated 400,00 to 460,000 Americans die from sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) either in an emergency room or before reaching a hospital, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

What’s shocking about this number is not just the amount of people that are dying with little warning but how many of those could possibly be saved with CPR — cardiopulmonary resuscitation — and other basic lifesaving skills.

While a person suffering from sudden cardiac arrest — also called sudden cardiac death — cannot survive without a shock to restart the heart, numerous studies have shown that early use of CPR, and more specifically minimally interrupted cardiac resuscitation, which focuses much more on chest compressions than breathing, can potentially double or even triple the chances of survival.

To simplify it, CPR is basically a series of chest compressions and breaths performed on a person who has stopped breathing and has no pulse. CPR’s role is to keeping oxygen flowing to the brain until help arrives. Without oxygen, brain and cardiac tissue begin to die within four to six minutes of cardiac arrest.

While CPR can be a literal lifesaver in some situations, there are times where it should not be performed. Examples of this are times when the victim is responsive, even minimally, and has a steady pulses and respiration. Performing CPR on such an individual could cause injury and complicate the situation.

Along with CPR, it is possible to reduce the chances of sudden cardiac death by learning other basic lifesaving skills (BLS). These include early identification of SCA, heart attacks, stroke, recognizing when someone is choking, and understanding how to correctly operate an automated external defibrillator, which delivers the necessary shock to restart the heart. Learning the proper Heimlich maneuver is another BLS.

What’s most frustrating for many medical persons is that becoming certified in these skills is not difficult nor is it time consuming. Many local organizations — fire department, American Heart Association, Red Cross, or some local hospitals — offer certification courses at little to no cost (see the calendar on page 37). In fact, with so much good that can come out of learning a few key skills, there’s almost no excuse not to get certified. Spending a couple of hours for the possibility to save a life; now that’s a no-brainer.