Toddler brought back after drowning.

associated press VANCOUVER, Wash. — Clark County firefighters say a 4-year-old girl nearly drowned at a popular swimming beach at Vancouver. Fire District 6 says a bystander spotted the girl face down in the water Monday evening at Klineline Pond in Salmon Creek Park. Witnesses started CPR until… Read More

We should all be ashamed that this sort of thing is still news, not the norm.

AMERICAN FALLS, Idaho — Quick-thinking coaches and a school's new defibrillator helped save the life of an American Falls High School athlete after the boy collapsed at practice. Superintendent Ron Bolinger said 17-year-old Ross Palmer, a star on the football team, collapsed near the end of… Read More

Nothing like evidence to set things straight.

The 2005 revisions to the BLS protocols stated that two minutes of CPR should precede defibrillation. A study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that there was no difference in outcomes between two large groups: (a) those that had 30-60 seconds of CPR before… Read More

People Just Like You Are Saving Lives. Get Trained!

Seriously, folks. Ordinary people can keep a cardiac arrest victim's heart and brain alive long enough for a defibrillator to re-start the heart. It doesn't happen all the time, but why is it that 27 % of cardiac arrest survivors had their arrest in an airport? It's because there are lots of AED's… Read More

Defibrillator Used, Teen Saved.

OK, folks, this is the way it's supposed to work. You have a defibrillator at every sporting event and practice, and when someone dies of sudden cardiac arrest, you use it. It's not high tech. Do it. AMERICAN FALLS — Quick-thinking coaches and a school's new defibrillator helped save the life of… Read More

Hygienist's CPR saves heart-attack victim after wreck

By Terry Evanstevans@star-telegram.com Star-Telegram / Ron T. Ennis Dental hygienist Julie Watson looks over debris outside the dental clinic where she works on Bryant Irvin Road. Watson is credited with saving the life of a heart-attack victim who slammed his car into the clinic. FORT WORTH — A… Read More

There's a large problem with 'presenting rhythm' statistics.

Here's the deal... When you have a sudden cardiac arrest, your heart has already progressed from a perfusing rhythm to a non-perfusing rhythm. i.e., your heart is not pumping blood to your brain, and you are clinically dead. The tracking systems report the "initial rhythm" as whatever the rhythm… Read More

Some really interesting items in the CARES report

In no particular order, here are some punctuation marks from the CARES data for the past 4+ years. By way of background, there are two significant categories of heart rhythm: shockable and un-shockable. The first chance we have of learning what a cardiac arrest victim's heart rhythm is occurs when… Read More

Missing and Rusty Links...in the Chain of Survival

There's a nice, tidy guide to maximizing resuscitation success when someone has a sudden cardiac arrest: (1) immediately recognize the arrest for what it is and activate the 911 emergency response network; (2) immediately begin chest compressions; (3) promptly defibrillate the victim; (4) get the… Read More

It's important to know where to find AEDs on Airplanes, Trains, and other public places.

Train Passengers Perform CPR After Man Collapses at West Newton StationAfter a man collapsed on the platform in West Newton, Commuter Rail passengers stepped in to help out. By Melanie Graham It was an exciting commute for a few passengers on the Framingham/Worcester Commuter Rail line this… Read More