PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. — It can happen out of nowhere. Someone suddenly goes into cardiac arrest, and once that happens, every minute counts.
“Everybody thinks it’s just the heart when we are having a heart attack, but the thing they don’t realize is that the brain can die. And the brain can die within six to ten minutes if nobody is doing CPR and delivering oxygen to the brain,” said Scott Rogers, community educator with Pembroke Pines Fire Rescue.
On average, if you live in the city, it takes emergency crews six to 12 minutes to arrive. But if you live in a rural area, it could take emergency crews 12 to 36 minutes. What you do while waiting can quite literally be the difference between life or death.
Administering CPR can double or even triple someone’s chance of survival, according to the American Heart Association. Rogers gave us a hands on lesson.
The first thing you do if someone collaspes, is to try and wake them up. If they don’t wake up, tell someone to call 911 and then start CPR.
It’s all hands on: one hand on top of the other and start compressions right at the center of the chest until emergency personnel arrive.
“You are giving this person a chance of life before we get there,” Rogers told Local 10.
While over 70% of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen in the home, about 16.3% happen in public settings.
If you are at a restaurant, business, or even your job, there should an AED machine. The machine is a game changer.
It “shocks” the person and can re-start the heart. The whole process is self-explanatory as the machine talks to you and gives you specific instructions.
These steps give the person in distress the best possible chance of survival.
While AEDs are encouraged to be at every business, they are not required. Which is why hands-on CPR is so vital in order to help save a life.
“Realize if you don’t do it, you have an almost zero percent chance of not making it,” said Rogers.
Pembroke Pines Fire offers free monthly CPR classes. You can find that information on their website.
To donate to American Heart Association, as part of Jenise’s “Woman of Impact” campaign, you can click here.
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