Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire CPR Can do More Harm Than Good

My mother died last spring at 104. Her greatest fear was having a stroke and being mentally competent in a comatose body. That's exactly what happened to her...1 week after her last covid booster. She could move 1 arm and wiggle the toes on 1 foot but couldn't speak in other than grunts. You could tell that she was wide awake and she lit up when any of the family walked in. She had that fear of a major stroke so she had a DNR. We had to wait a week for her to die. It was bad but that's what she wanted. With care, she could have dragged on for months in that state and she absolutely didn't want that.
She was a life long solid Christian and was ready to go.

I spent 14 months away from home with mainly respiratory problems, brought on by Covid. Part of that time was in a nursing home. The nurses there contended if you’re not breaking ribs or the sternum, you’re not doing it right. Most non staff are aged and tend to be frail.

You can not injure a dead person.

Have to wonder why the left wants to discredit CPR. This NY Post article references an NPR "investigation." They only (incompletely) cite one specific study, done in 1961 at Johns Hopkins. Everything else is identified vaguely as "another study," or "a previous study", or "a 2010 study." They cite unnamed "noted bioethicists." Their best boy seems to be Stefan Timmermans, a "sociologist and CPR expert." "Sociologist and CPR expert." Really?

This is a typical NPR "investigation" that has been funded by someone with a vested interest in discrediting CPR. That's NPR's role in the field of social engineering.

Mouth to mouth is not taught as part of CPR any more. It's explained as being not necessary to oxygenate the brain. The reality is people are reluctant to do it on strangers.

I think back 30-some years when I came upon a traffic rollover where a guy (sans seatbelt) had flown out his drivers window, flew 30 ft in the air and came down on his head. Blood was pouring out of his mouth, which, from my experience with head-shot animals, suggested a traumatic brain injury.

No way I was going to give him mouth to mouth. He was already curling into a fetal position as I came up.

We covered him with a blanket and the ambulance arrived in about 3 min. They went to work on him, suctioned his mouth and inserted a breathing tube. I heard the one paramedic say to the other "No need to rush, partner." Dude was not coming out of that one.

Mouth to mouth is a must for a drowning victim.

One of my old Paramedic buddies was at the gym of Georgia Military College a few months ago. About 20 guys were there playing basketball. Suddenly, Gary saw a guy drop to the floor. As Gary hurried over there, he saw a bystander drop to his knees and he yelled out "I am starting CPR!"

Gary got there just as he did one chest compression, and he heard the ribs crack. Gary dropped down and got in the bystander's face and said in loud voice "I am a Paramedic. Stop Compressions!" The bystander stopped compressions.
Gary checked the neck and there was a good carotid pulse. The man was having a seizure and his heart had never stopped.

I said "Gary, you saved that man's life."
Gary said "Yes."

Finding a pulse on the wrist or arm, especially if it's a weak pulse, is extremely hard. There's a place right near the trachea that lends itself extremely well to finding a pulse, so most people should go for that. Hell, if I'm in a situation where I'm not sure if a person has a pulse, I'm gonna check the trachea.

As far as the article itself, the American Heart Association says that an out of hospital cardiac arrest has a survivor rate of about 10%. If a bystander sees and begins CPR immediately, that rate goes to about 30 or 40%. Still not great odds either way, but I think most of us would take the 30 to 40% odds.

Of course, there are times that performing CPR is going to have very minimal benefit. If an 85 year old person that's tiny and frail goes into cardiac arrest, the amount of damage that will be caused by CPR is such that I'm not sure it's worthwhile. If they live, they're going to have about twenty fractured ribs, probably a rib puncturing internal organs, and brain damage (from going any period of time without the heart pumping). Not to mention the trauma endured by the individual performing CPR that did all that damage which probably just sped up death. The nurses in nursing homes are probably just about begging such people to sign a DNR (if only in their head).

CPR is full on assault that can improve survival in many situations. If you're not breaking ribs, you're probably not doing it right (chest compressions should be 1/3 of body thickness or 1.5 to 2 inches, whichever is less). But the brain damage aspect is going to be from the brain not having an adequate supply of oxygenated blood, and CPR is an attempt to allow the brain to have an adequate supply of oxygen as death can occur quickly without oxygen.

Rural EMT for 15 years. Zero for 23 on CPR. Always tell folks, when God says it is your day... It is your day...

Middle sized city 55,000 +- population. Worked as an emt on the fire department with a paramedic. I only had one patient live after cpr and that was on a little old lady in church for her husbands funeral. He died the week before shoveling snow and he was worked when he went down as well. When we got the widow’s call our medic unit was tied up and the backup with 2 EMTs was sent. I couldn’t palpate a pulse and neither could the ambulance, also 2 EMTs. I think she had tachycardia and we jostled her around enough to get a conversion. This was before automatic defibrillators were available. I don’t consider her a save either. We were lucky not to have killed her doing cpr. I believe a lot of people have died as a result of CPR with a heart rhythm undetected by the people trying to help.

I probably did CPR 50 times in my career going 0 for all of them except the example sited. All but the one was with a paramedic with a defibrillator. I think CPR was created to allow first responders to do something positive regarding patient care, give the family some hope and remove the body to the hospital as fast as possible.

Oh and as far as CPR by nurses, we had a bunch of assisted living convalescent homes and if a member of the staff was doing CPR it was usually wrong. You can’t do effective CPR with the patient on a mattress. We would routinely see nurses and aids doing it on the bed and we would remove the patient to the floor and run the code from there. Emergency room nurses are the exception and knew what they were doing.

Everyone knows you can make the numbers look anyway you want, just depends on who's doing the study.

Paul, “CONTEX of the scenario”…

My wife was a USN Corpsman for 8 years. I asked her about this topic just now. She was personally involved (either doing it herself or being present while another medical person administreed it) in over 100 cases of administering CPR, usually to a young male (under 40) who'd either suffered a cardiac arrest, or significant trauma (car accident or fall).

One person made it. No idea how that person's life went afterwards.

The overwhelming majority of people without a pulse are "dead" for a reason. Keeping the blood flowing through their body doesn't fix what caused their condition.

Early defib is effective many,many more times than CPR but who ever carries a defibrillator around with them? CPR is better than nothing.
I saw a lady open her eyes and look around when CPR was being done. When we stopped to check a pulse she went back out. It was a really weird. Like SimonKenton said, 99.9% of the people we did CPR on are still dead. I think I only ever saw someone convert after shocking a shockable rhythm and a little epi.

A buddy I worked with dropped dead mid stride while out for a run.

A woman having her coffee on her balcony saw him lip skid, ran down, and called 911. She started compressions. Paramedics continued compressions. He was revived and is alive today. He definitely has some cognitive issues. Not bad, but you can tell he’s a bit “different” now.

Pretty sure he is happy she started cpr. The fall did a lot of damage. Busted out a bunch of teeth and crushed his orbital bone, concussion, etc…

Me? I’m checking pockets first. 😂

I've taken some relatively advanced first aid courses for jobs I've had that required it from professionals and from Red Cross International first aid trainers. In each case the more advanced courses taught us several things the standard one day first aid courses did not- that doing CPR will almost certainly result in broken ribs, sternum and possibly other damage- especially if the patient is obese or otherwise compromised for purposes of CPR. The second thing they always told us was don't expect to have a hallelujah moment where the heavens open and you save the victim because it is rare.

I've never had to use CPR on anyone yet, as each time I have been in a position for it there has been some sort of medical professional immediately available who took care of business and I was usually the one "directing traffic" . I have, however, had two successful opportunities to use the heimlich maneuver to save somebody who was choking and I was immensely relieved when it actually worked as advertised. I always wondered what the survival rate is for the Automatic Defibrillator machines are that most of us on electrical jobs are trained on these days. More and more companies are placing these in their hallways in the same manner they put fire extinguishers- probably pushed by their insurance companies - and train their personnel on their use but I've never heard any feedback on how well they actually work and survivability after a heart attack and revival ...

I’ve performed CPR literally hundreds of times starting at the age of 16. I’ve seen, felt and heard the crepitus of a flailed chest and I’ve felt the soft rebound of a toddlers chest. If my loved one is down I’ll be performing CPR and getting access to electricity stat! Electricity is almost always needed to get a rhythm back.

Back in my working career I was at one of our city's fire stations looking at a new rescue unit that was equipped with an automatic CPR device they strapped to the victim's chest that provided the compressions. The paramedics were glad that they wouldn't have to be personally breaking ribs anymore. I asked them how many of their cases actually survived a heart attack after CPR, 10%? The answer was "way less, but we have to do something after we roll up".

You can exclude those who suffered a car accident or other trauma which caused their heart to stop. They have severe internal injuries and are not going to be brought back by CPR. But those young men who collapsed just due to some cardiac dysrhythmia are the ones that might be resuscitated. But, really, how many of those are they? Likely very few.

CPR, even when collapse is witnessed and conditions are ideal, is nothing to bet on, but with just that cadre of patients — those without physical trauma — her numbers would likely have been somewhat better.