Appropriate Time to Provide Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

Jimmy Marwan Kassis graduated with a degree in psychology and is now working as an emergency medical technician at Beaumont EMS. Jimmy Marwan Kassis is experienced in providing immediate pre-hospital medical care such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and hemorrhage control to sick or injured patients.

Commonly referred to as CPR, cardiopulmonary resuscitation involves multiple techniques including cardiac compression which is performed by pumping the heart in a process known as artificial circulation. This helps achieve blood circulation and oxygen delivery to body organs of patients with cardiac arrest before moving or while moving the patient to an appropriate health facility to save their life. Cardiac arrest is a condition where the heart stops pumping, and it can follow a heart attack. Also known as acute myocardial infarction, a heart attack happens when part of the heart does not receive enough oxygen. If a patient with cardiac arrest is not attended to immediately, they can die.

When cardiac arrest occurs, a person untrained in CPR can provide immediate hands-only CPR, which involves uninterrupted chest compression that reaches between 100 to 120 compression per minute prior to the arrival of an emergency technician. If a CPR untrained individual is unable to tell whether an unconscious patient has a cardiac arrest or not, they can still provide immediate CPR anyway. An emergency technician or paramedic on arrival will check the pulse and breathing of the patient. The technician begins chest compression if the patient shows no sign of breathing or a pulse within 10 seconds. Often, emergency technicians or paramedics start CPR with 30 chest compression followed by two rescue breaths.