Save a life; learn CPR
Free class offered to county residents
Staff reporter
According to the American Heart Association, early CPR and defibrillation within the first three to five minutes after collapse can result in a 50 percent survival rate.
Providing CPR can "buy time" by maintaining some blood flow to the heart and brain during cardiac arrest.
Sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death in adults. Most arrests occur in people with underlying heart diseases.
Of all cardiac arrests, 75 percent of them occur in people's homes.
Typical victims of cardiac arrest are men in their early 60s and women in their late 60s. It occurs twice as frequently in men as women.
In sudden cardiac arrest, the heart goes from a normal heartbeat to a quivering rhythm called ventricular fibrillation (VF). This happens in approximately two-thirds of all cardiac arrest. VF is fatal unless an electric shock (defibrillator) can be given. CPR does not stop VF but extends the window of time in which defibrillation can be effective.
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.
CPR was developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when doctors discovered the benefit of chest compression to achieve a small amount of artificial circulation.
Later in 1960, mouth-to-mouth and chest compression were combined to form CPR similar to the way it is practice today.
