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Cardiac arrest, also known as Sudden Cardiac Arrest, is when the heart stops beating suddenly. The lack of blood flow to the brain and other organs can cause a person to lose consciousness, become disabled or die if not treated immediately.

The terms ‘heart attack’ and ‘cardiac arrest’ are often used interchangeably, but these are two different heart conditions.

A heart attack occurs when there is a blockage in the arteries that stops blood flow in the heart. Due to the lack of blood and oxygen flowing in the heart, the heart muscle tissue will become damaged. Heart attacks can increase the risk for cardiac arrest because heart attacks can alter electrical signals in the heart.

CPR – or Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation – is an emergency lifesaving procedure performed when the heart stops beating. Immediate CPR can double or triple chances of survival after cardiac arrest.

If someone experiences cardiac arrest, they need immediate treatment to increase the flow of oxygen-rich blood to their organs. CPR is the compression over the chest to manually pump a patients heart. Rescue breaths are preformed to provide oxygen to the body.

During CPR, proper hand placement on the lower half of the sternum is crucial. Placing hands over the sternum ensures effective chest compressions directly above the heart, optimizing blood circulation throughout the body.

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), the overall survival rate for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is around 10%. However, survival rates can be improved if bystander CPR is started immediately. Studies have shown that bystander CPR increases the chances of survival for someone experiencing cardiac arrest. In fact, the AHA reports that survival rates increases to 40% or higher when bystander CPR is performed promptly. The surival rate is between 24% and 40% for those that happen in the hospital, according to the report published online in the Emergency Medicine Journal.

CPR is preformed between 100 - 120 beats per minute. Famously Staying Alive by the Bee Gees is the same beat. A large list of songs with the correct BPM can be found here

cure-for-fascism The American Red Cross gives the following list of steps to asses if CPR is needed and how to preform:

1 CHECK the scene for safety, form an initial impression and use personal protective equipment (PPE)

2 If the person appears unresponsive, CHECK for responsiveness, breathing, life-threatening bleeding or other life-threatening conditions using shout-tap-shout

3 If the person does not respond and is not breathing or only gasping, CALL 9-1-1 and get equipment, or tell someone to do so

4 Kneel beside the person. Place the person on their back on a firm, flat surface

5 The American Red Cross CPR guidelines recommend 100 to 120 chest compressions per minute, 30 at a time. Remember these five points:

Hand position: Two hands centered on the chest

Body position: Shoulders directly over hands; elbows locked

Compression depth: At least 2 inches

Rate of compressions: 100 to 120 per minute

Allow chest to return to normal position after each compression

6

Give 2 breaths

Open the airway to a past-neutral position using the head-tilt/chin-lift technique Pinch the nose shut, take a normal breath, and make complete seal over the person’s mouth with your mouth. Ensure each breath lasts about 1 second and makes the chest rise; allow air to exit before giving the next breath Note: If the 1st breath does not cause the chest to rise, retilt the head and ensure a proper seal before giving the 2nd breath If the 2nd breath does not make the chest rise, an object may be blocking the airway

7 Continue giving sets of 30 chest compressions and 2 breaths. Use an AED as soon as one is available! Minimize interruptions to chest compressions to less than 10 seconds.

Video instructions

Sources:

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/cardiac-arrest

https://cpr.heart.org/en/resources/cpr-facts-and-stats

https://www.mycprcertificationonline.com/blog/cpr-success-rate

Instructional images from the AHS Basic Life Support Manual (2020)

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  • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]
    6•7 hours ago

    Its kinda weird reading something from 1995 saying something like

    There’s a lot of writing about gender now. I keep reading the magazine articles, the newspaper columns, and the text books, pre- and postmodern. I read, watch, and listen to all the ads and commercials. You can learn a lot about gender from those commercials. I’ve also been watching the talk shows, listening to the call-in programs, and browsing the electronic bulletin boards. When I was very young, growing up in the 50s, I read the medical texts, devoured the tabloids, and hoarded the pornography—because I was intensely interested in me and my people.

    Like, I was too young then to be noticing such, but its still weird seeing that when I don’t think I really had even a vague idea of what transsexual/transgender was until probably the late 00’s or maybe even early 10’s. My parents frequently took us to LGBT family events as young children, so I wonder how much representation the T’s got or if it was almost exclusively the LGB at those? Doubt I’d have noticed though… I remember one time being at a church my parents had taken us to occasionally (mostly for Christmas service) and I had missed that it was largely an LGBT church until I was in the middle of high school because I simply didn’t notice all the same-sex couples (suddenly it made sense why my mom went so far out of the way to go to that church). So maybe I was just oblivious.