Resuscitation
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Multicenter Study
Time used for ventilation in two-rescuer CPR with a bag-valve-mask device during out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Professional rescuers only deliver chest compressions 39% of the available time before intubation during out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. In manikin-studies lay rescuers need approximately 15s to deliver two ventilations. It is not known how much time professional rescuers use for two ventilations and we hypothesised that the time used for two ventilations with a bag-valve-mask device before tracheal intubation is longer than recommended and that the extended time contributes to the high no flow time. ⋯ Professional rescuers delivered two bag-valve-mask ventilations within the 5-6s as indicated in the 2000 Guidelines, slightly longer than the 3-4s recommended in the 2005 Guidelines. However, only half the pauses were used for two ventilations, and the total time for two ventilations accounted for only 27% of the time without chest compressions. Excessive time for ventilation cannot explain the high no-flow time during CPR by professional rescuers before intubation.
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Multicenter Study
Cardiac arrest patients rarely receive chest compressions before ambulance arrival despite the availability of pre-arrival CPR instructions.
To determine the proportion of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OOHCA) patients who received chest compressions, before EMS arrival, from bystanders who called the EMS emergency telephone number (9-1-1) at dispatch centers that provided telephone CPR instructions and to describe barriers to following instructions. ⋯ Few 9-1-1 callers provided chest compressions following telephone CPR instructions that included airway and breathing steps. The majority of callers were unwilling or emotionally or physically unable to follow the instructions.