The importance of bystander CPR
CPR can keep a person experiencing a cardiac arrest alive until paramedics can arrive. Traditional CPR involves chest compression to manually keep the heart pumping, and also mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to provide oxygen to the person in cardiac arrest. Bystander CPR involves only the chest compressions. They’re both important, but when cardiac arrest occurs, there’s already some oxygen in the blood. Doctors say it’s much more important to immediately pump that blood to the brain than spend extra time trying to give the patient more oxygen.
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