We can find ourselves, our friends or complete strangers in life threatening situations for which we are not prepared. Take the case of sudden cardiac arrest. So many people go to the gym and while they are on the treadmill, they are at the risk of a cardiac arrest. That's what happened recently to David Goldberg, CEO of Survey Monkey and husband of Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg.
He died of the sudden trauma while gyming. More than 1000 lives are lost every year due to cardiac arrest in flights. While medical care may not have been available immediately, these lives could have been saved if someone knew how to provide basic emergency care. What can we do as ordinary individuals to save another person in need? Most people who experience a cardiac arrest at home, work or in a public location die because they don't receive immediate CPR, short for Cardio-pulmonary Resuscitation, from someone on the scene.
About 92 percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims die before reaching the hospital but statistics prove that if immediate help in the form of CPR could be provided by the bystanders, more lives could be saved.
An immediate CPR can double, or even triple a victim's chance of survival. That's what happened to a man flying from Canada to Hong Kong in 2014. He suffered cardiac arrest during the flight and 2 fellow passengers who were trained in CPR swung into action and took him to a more open area near emergency exit and resuscitated him, thereby freeing up his airway. The man survived till the plane landed and later made complete recovery in the hospital.
As a concerned individual, it is your turn to take a stand and jump right into the situation before help arrives and save lives. So what is CPR? It is a lifesaving technique useful in many emergencies, including heart attack or near drowning in which someone's breathing or heartbeat has stopped. Though a CPR is unlikely to restart the heart, its main purpose is to restore partial flow of oxygenated blood to the brain and heart. The objective is to delay tissue death and to extend the brief window of opportunity for a successful resuscitation without permanent brain damage.
Though it seems like a simple procedure to perform, CPR has a certain set of rules and precautions that must be followed and hands-on training is required so you are ready to go.