CPR Facts:

* Almost 80 percent of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen at home, so being trained to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can mean the difference between life and death for a loved one.
* Effective bystander CPR, provided immediately after cardiac arrest, can double a victim’s chance of survival.
* CPR helps maintain vital blood flow to the heart and brain and increases the amount of time that an electric shock from a defibrillator can be effective.
* Approximately 95 percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims die before reaching the hospital.
* Death from sudden cardiac arrest is not inevitable, CPR can save their lives
* Brain death starts to occur four to six minutes after someone experiences cardiac arrest if no CPR and defibrillation occurs during that time.
* If bystander CPR is not provided, a sudden cardiac arrest victim’s chances of survival fall 7 percent to 10 percent for every minute of delay until defibrillation.
* Coronary heart disease accounts for about 450,000 of the nearly 870,000 adults who die each year as a result of cardiovascular disease.
* Approximately 310,000 of all annual adult coronary heart diseasedeaths in the United States are suffered outside the hospital setting and in hospital emergency departments. Of those deaths, about 166,200 are due to sudden cardiac arrest.
* Sudden cardiac arrest is most often caused by an abnormal heart rhythm called ventricular fibrillation (VF). Cardiac arrest can also occur after the onset of a heart attack or as a result of electrocution or near-drowning.
* The typical victim of cardiac arrest is a man in his early 60’s and a woman in her late 60’s.
* Cardiac arrest occurs twice as frequently in men compared to women.
* CPR was invented in 1960
* There has never been a case of HIV transmitted by mouth-to-mouth CPR
* CPR provides a trickle of oxygenated blood to the brain and heart and keeps these organs alive until defibrillation can shock the heart into a normal rhythm.
* If CPR is started within 4 minutes of collapse and defibrillation provided within 10 minutes, a person has a 40% chance of survival.

Signs and Symptoms of Heart Attack:

1. Chest pain – can be an uncomfortable pressure, tightness or feeling of indigestion, heavy squeezing pain like a weight on the chest, can radiate to left arm and neck
2. Nausea/vomiting
3. Shortness of breath
4. Pale, sweaty cold skin
5. May have no signs or symptoms (silent Myocardial infarction)