That is so utterly wrong. It all depends on the cause of death.
Especially sudden traumatic deaths, such as choking or drowning, where the rest of the body was little impaired, have crazy high recovery chances if immediate and persistent CPR is applied.
And even on chronically I’ll patients, e.g. the commonly thought of cholesterol caused infarction and subsequent heart attack has a good chance to recover. Modern medicine is amazing!
But in most cases, you simply won’t know in the moment why somebody dies. And does it matter? You can make assumptions, but you could be totally wrong. So leave that part to the EMTs and doctors. Your job as a human in that moment is to give someone the best chance they will get to experience more life.
In all cases the chances of survival and recovery sink with literally every second, which is why it can be so frustrating to see people too scared or cynical to even try. What are you afraid of? You can’t make em any more dead. And I truly hope anyone would be willing to “waste” the time and effort to at least try if I suddenly died. Even if your CPR is too weak, too strong ( yes, also possible, albeit very rare), too slow or too fast: the by far worst CPR is the one not given at all.
And I can promise you this: you will never regret having attempted to do CPR, even if there is no resuscitation.
I am sorry if I offended you. I wasn’t being dismissive of CPR. I actually am certified by the Red Cross for CPR and my mother and sister are nurses. I was under the impression it was a last ditch effort that hardly ever works. And if it does it’s usually broken ribs and hard to recover from when they are extremely elderly.
On its own, it has a very low percent chance of recovery. Though it does change based on the mechanism of injury. However, it is extremely useful in prolonging the period in which other medical interventions can be successful. It very much gives time for EMTs to arrive and use defibrillators or chemical intervention.
I’m confident in your training they made it extremely clearly to call 911 and start emergency responders before starting CPR if you are the only person there.
CPR alone usually wont bring someone back, but what it does is buy time for them to get more advanced treatment that might.
There’s some exceptions, things like asphyxia and drowning have a pretty decent chance of bringing the person back if it’s done properly and promptly. In things like opioid overdoses it can buy you a couple critical minutes for cops or the ambulance to get there and shoot some narcan up their nose and then they’re back on their feet in no time flat.
Fun fact: you can get narcan to carry as a first aid measure from almost any pharmacy, and many local health departments host narcan trainings and give it out for free. Giving someone narcan when they don’t need it won’t do anything at all, so the worst you’re doing is nothing, and the best case scenario, you can save a life.
I actually performed CPR during an industrial accident. A contractor was welding at a large power plant, and someone sabotaged the acetylene bottles by opening the valves on 3 cylinders, then torquing the cap on with a pipe wrench. 3 people collapsed from asphyxiation and their entry attendant sounded an alarm, they were pulled out by a few people with SCBA’s we kept close by due to confined space entry rules. That right there was the life saver, we drug them out, administered CPR, broke the fuck out of their ribs and they started breathing again.
It was a very lucky scenario for the survivors as they collapsed and received CPR in about 120 seconds.
That is so utterly wrong. It all depends on the cause of death. Especially sudden traumatic deaths, such as choking or drowning, where the rest of the body was little impaired, have crazy high recovery chances if immediate and persistent CPR is applied.
And even on chronically I’ll patients, e.g. the commonly thought of cholesterol caused infarction and subsequent heart attack has a good chance to recover. Modern medicine is amazing!
But in most cases, you simply won’t know in the moment why somebody dies. And does it matter? You can make assumptions, but you could be totally wrong. So leave that part to the EMTs and doctors. Your job as a human in that moment is to give someone the best chance they will get to experience more life.
In all cases the chances of survival and recovery sink with literally every second, which is why it can be so frustrating to see people too scared or cynical to even try. What are you afraid of? You can’t make em any more dead. And I truly hope anyone would be willing to “waste” the time and effort to at least try if I suddenly died. Even if your CPR is too weak, too strong ( yes, also possible, albeit very rare), too slow or too fast: the by far worst CPR is the one not given at all.
And I can promise you this: you will never regret having attempted to do CPR, even if there is no resuscitation.
I am sorry if I offended you. I wasn’t being dismissive of CPR. I actually am certified by the Red Cross for CPR and my mother and sister are nurses. I was under the impression it was a last ditch effort that hardly ever works. And if it does it’s usually broken ribs and hard to recover from when they are extremely elderly.
On its own, it has a very low percent chance of recovery. Though it does change based on the mechanism of injury. However, it is extremely useful in prolonging the period in which other medical interventions can be successful. It very much gives time for EMTs to arrive and use defibrillators or chemical intervention.
I’m confident in your training they made it extremely clearly to call 911 and start emergency responders before starting CPR if you are the only person there.
CPR alone usually wont bring someone back, but what it does is buy time for them to get more advanced treatment that might.
There’s some exceptions, things like asphyxia and drowning have a pretty decent chance of bringing the person back if it’s done properly and promptly. In things like opioid overdoses it can buy you a couple critical minutes for cops or the ambulance to get there and shoot some narcan up their nose and then they’re back on their feet in no time flat.
Fun fact: you can get narcan to carry as a first aid measure from almost any pharmacy, and many local health departments host narcan trainings and give it out for free. Giving someone narcan when they don’t need it won’t do anything at all, so the worst you’re doing is nothing, and the best case scenario, you can save a life.
I actually performed CPR during an industrial accident. A contractor was welding at a large power plant, and someone sabotaged the acetylene bottles by opening the valves on 3 cylinders, then torquing the cap on with a pipe wrench. 3 people collapsed from asphyxiation and their entry attendant sounded an alarm, they were pulled out by a few people with SCBA’s we kept close by due to confined space entry rules. That right there was the life saver, we drug them out, administered CPR, broke the fuck out of their ribs and they started breathing again.
It was a very lucky scenario for the survivors as they collapsed and received CPR in about 120 seconds.