A FATAL IGNORANCE
Cardiac arrests are killing tens of thousands of people, but the public doesn’t know how to help
FEWER than one in 10 people survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest - and experts say the figure would be far higher if more of us knew CPR.
Statistics from the British Heart Foundation (BHF show there are more than 30,000 cardiac arrests that take place outside of hospitals every year.
Only around 8% of these people will survive.
The BHF says this is largely down to bystanders not knowing how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation - more commonly known as CPR.
In fact, nearly a third of UK adults say they unlikely to perform CPR if they see someone suffer a cardiac arrest because they don't know how to do it.
The BHF says if you witness a cardiac arrest then it's crucial to start CPR immediately.
You should shake and shout for the person, check for normal breathing, and then call 999.
After this you should give 30 chest compressions at a rate of two per second.
Then, two rescue breaths should be given by pinching the person's nose, making a seal around their mouth and breathing steadily.
The two breaths should last no longer than five seconds. The 30 chest compressions and two rescue breaths should be repeated until an ambulance arrives. The BHF estimates that in countries where CPR is taught in schools, as many as one in four people will survive a cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrests are different from heart attacks. A heart attack is a medical emergency where the supply of blood to the heart becomes blocked, in most cases by a blood clot. A person's heart usually carries on beating in a heart attack, unless they go into cardiac arrest which means the heart has stopped beating completely.
Brain tissue starts to die within three minutes after the heart stops because of a lack of oxygen.
But early CPR can more double a person's chance of survival.
Alarmingly, around 270 UK children die every year after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest at school.
SImon Gillespie, chief executive of the BHF, said: “People may not feel confident performing CPR if they haven't been trained or don't remember their training but without early action the chances someone will survive a cardiac arrest are virtually zero. “The BHF is striving to improve survival rates by creating a Nation of Lifesavers through our CPR training programmes.” Damian Hinds, Education Secretary, said: "Knowing how to save someone's life is one of the most powerful skills you can learn. “That's why we plan to teach first aid as part of health education, which we intend to make compulsory in all state funded schools from 2020.”