Bringing People Back From the Dead

This article is interesting, but is doing more to spread medical myths of CPR. Again, a lot of those myths are due to what we see on television.

Recent statistics show that the success rate for CPR is:

• 2% to 30% effectiveness when administered outside of the hospital
• 6% to 15% for hospitalized patients
• < 5% for elderly victims with multiple medical problems

The variability in those numbers is due to the huge number of complications with each patient. No two cases are going to be exactly the same and people with cardia arrest usually have many other underlying conditions that compound the problem.

Even reviving someone by CPR the odds are heavily favored that they will relapse and die. This is not something that we like to face, but that is reality.

I have no doubt we will get better as technology advances, but even with the advances we have today the numbers are pretty dismal. Citing the few cases that beat the odds does nothing to change the true statistics.

It's still worth trying [been there, done it, etc.].

Absolutely. But it is misleading to present things so out of context.

What about Zombies ?

Ah, more TV viewers. :)

Even reviving someone by CPR the odds are heavily favored that they will relapse and die. This is not something that we like to face, but that is reality.

So far, those odds are 100%.

I think your study is dated.

My biggest concern with doing a CPR on a stranger is that I may have save some SOB that was better of dead or that will I save some one that society was better off without.

I mean I don't want to be rude but really the person is lying there dying and I feel compelled to first ask around to see who knows them and then find out if they are worth saving.

Yeah, its not like people are an endangered species.

No real urgency in saving any particular one's DNA....

The CPR technique is about timing and persistence. The rhythm is easy to remember: it's the beat to "Hah, hah, hah, hah, stayin' alive, stayin' alive. Hah, hah, ha, ha, stayin' aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive" with apologies to the Bee Gees.

One is buying time until the emergency services arrive.

A training course in basic First Aid is a heartily recommended pursuit for everyone.

" Somebody call the zoo keeper! " (Accidental hero, Dustin Hoffman)

jt.

Swimming Pools are still popular. A group of people knocked on my door recently
and asked me for a donation for our local swimming pool.
So I gave them a large glass of water just to start them off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiopulmonary_resuscitation

Okay - here comes the legal issues AGAIN. You do CPR forever and finally someone comes back, but they have suffered some mental deterioration. Now the family sues for this complication claiming poor application of CPR. Better to just let them go. But, quite the opposite becomes possible now too - suits over stopping CPR before an hour or so. Lawyers are drooling over this issue.

Not under the Good Samaritan Law. You are exempt.

Okay this covers the application of CPR by the emergency responder, but does this cover the second option - stopping too soon as determined by the family of the deceased? Will this require CPR for hours if transport to a hospital is not immediately available due to weather conditions or other disaster? (can the emergency responder determine the futility of CPR and still be covered by the good samaritan?) Does this cover a physician in the OR? (malpractice suit)

We are certainly in need of tort reform concerning medical malpractice .

I think the good samaritan generally does of a good job of protecting nonprofessionals from misguided legal action.

The situations you describe are really, really rare and EMS tends to keep trying until they hand it off to the ER.

Obviously, there are situations where DNR is clear. Decapitation is one.

The Good Samaritan Law is designed for ordinary citizens that intervene and generally not professional health care individuals. Anyone (layperson) rendering aid for the purpose to help the victim and not for financial reward or compensation is covered under this law.

I'd have to ask my girlfriend on when a professional healthcare person can stop.

She did tell me a story where she began CPR on one person and all of a sudden she got a vivid feeling of "Let me go!" She said it actually forced her hands back, but she did it anyways all the way to the ER. The patient continued to code a few more times before they had her stabilized. My girlfriend never followed up to find out if she survived, but she said that she never had such a strong impression like that from anyone.

She also had the ability to somehow tell if someone was going to make it or not. She can't explain how/why, just that you could tell upon arriving at the scene. Others she worked with also get those same sensations. It is a very emotionally intense job. Great for adrenaline junkies.

Medical law suits are extremely difficult to "win" for the claimant because, unless the supply (whatever is-was done) is manifestly done in error, e.g. to chop of the wrong leg, or such like, then most negligent claims can be arguable.

One has to not only show error in what ever was done, but that the treatment or supply was definitely negligent. (if not done in malice.)

Proving negligence, when most defendants would and do argue (especially doctors, do gooders, etc.) and likely quite innocently in most cases, that "they had done their best" to save the poor soul, then it is easy to see how difficult "negligence" can be to prove. No matter how much in "error" was thought the supply, it was not necessarily negligent by the supplier.
Simply, negligent claims can be very difficult to prove, unless obvious.
Did you do your last work.. "to the best of your knowledge and ability?"

jt

A man was sitting at home when he hears a knock on the door.
He opens it and sees a snail on the porch.
He picks it up and throws it as far away as he can.

Three years later there's a knock on the door.
He opens it and sees the same snail.
The snail says, "What the hell was that all about?"

Consider the cost of defending a legal suit, even if you win, there are significant costs in both time and legal fees to defend that suit.

If medical suits were difficult to win, there wouldn't be the army of ambulance chasers funding the sea of 'Injured? Stupid? Ugly?' commercials/advertisements on every media that will tolerate disseminating their filth.

.

If payouts for medical law suits were difficult to win, or if the payouts were in line with actual damages due to physician incompetence, neglect or malice, there would not be such a hoard of very wealthy, average-at-best, attorneys in every town with their fat smug faces on bill boards, phone books, and tv commercials.

...oh, and medical costs would be substantially lower.