As a 30-year medic, I'm wondering how many people actually think that CPR restarts hearts, 'cuz it doesn't.

Question

It always saddens me whenever I teach CPR to see all those expectant faces, each one thinking, "Great! Now I can save lives." The Heart Association & Red Cross have done no one any favors by actually convincing milions that CPR restarts hearts. Trust me. If CPR were an airline, 99% of its planes would be crashing every day of the year. And you wouldn't fly on any of their planes.

Answer 1

LOL soo true... As a fellow Paramedic I too find it funny how everyone thinks that if they know CPR they will save someones life. Hell the way you have a reasonable chance of bringing um back is if it is witnesses and ALS care is able to be initiated like with in the first minute. If your heart stops it is not witnessed by an ALS provider you have less than a 1% chance of survival. Or in other words you are going to DIE! lol

Answer 2

CPR is NOT DESIGNED TO RESTART THE HEART, it is designed to oxygenate the brain so you guys in the noisy trucks can haul them to the hospital where they have a 7% chance of recovery. The manuals we use do not teach that the heart will start because of this- although they do comment that AEDs can help.

They have a better chance if I do my job as a CPR teacher right and get a lot of laypeople trained to pump the heart until you finally show up, and an even better chance if you do your job right and get the AED going and get them moving.

If 99% of YOUR people are crashing, it is not be OUR fault- national average survival is 7%. Omaha's is 12-21% (depending on definition of success), Seattle is running about 40%. While there are a lot of reasons for the increased successes, ONE reason is a lot of laypeople trained to help you guys save people.

Don't go blaming the Red Cross or AHA for the mis-perceptions that a hundred TV shows preach- I have never seen a certified, experienced instructor claim that this is going to work for the layperson.

Maybe I don't pound them with the fact that most of the time the victim is going to die. Forgive me for trying to get people thinking they can do this- to try to get people out there willing to even try.


EMT, Red Cross Instructor, CPR Pro instructor, etc.

Answer 3

You have 2 different questions here.
1. Does CPR restart hearts?
2. Does CPR save lives?

Answer 4

I used to, until my CPR class. Yes, it was one of those two-hour seminars. What we were taught is that the best can expect is that we will do the work of cirulating the blood and oxygen for the person until the professionals (you!) arrive.
PS I was rescued by some of your colleagues 8 years ago when I flipped over in a car, crashed my head out of the window, bled from two places cranially and hung from my seatbelt.
There was a slight pulse, though, even with no breath.
Thank you for all that you do!!

Answer 5

First of all, if you are about to receive CPR, you are unconscious how do you know the belief of the individual administering CPR? Secondly, God allowed Job to go through those calamities, he did not send the troubles to Job, satan did. God uses all kind of things to bless His children. Ever find money on the ground? That is God Somebody ever do something unexpectedly to bless you? That's God. God uses the common, and the ordinary, and not always the extraordinary, to bless, and to show you He cares. Let's face it if every time the Lord helped you out, if it was on a grand scale; you could not handle it.The mega-event would overwhelm you. If He called out to you , His majestic voice alone could give you a heart attack !!Moses saw the back of God in a shadow,and his face was forever changed. So God uses the ordinary to help you out, but we as humans, the self-centered fleshly creatures that we can be, become arrogant, and self-absorbed; and fail to remember that we can do nothing without God. We cannot by ourselves do one thing, and we have the audacity to believe that we are greater than the Creator.We were created to worship God. God is God all by Himself. We are the creation, we are not equal to the creator.And our disrespect puts us in dangerous territory.It is past time for us to repent.

Answer 6

Yeah, but if these people knew "Oh, CPR does squat", and they decided not to try, a few lives would have ended prematurely. If it means someone has a chance, no matter how small, of surviving, does it matter what people think it does so long as they try?

Answer 7

The answer to your question is simple: look at what the other posters replied.

Answer 8

so are you asking a question?
or did you just post this so you
can make yourself seem superior?