6-7%. That’s the national average rate of survival for victims of cardiac arrest who receive CPR. When Wake County EMS responds to cardiac arrest calls, the victims chance of survival more than doubles.

The insider information is simple; research shows that when CPR is provided in excess of 25 minutes, survival rates drastically increase.

The Wake County EMS district chief, Hammerstein, explains,”We were still seeing signs in the patient that had a shot of survival. We chased those signs and found that in fact we were getting responses from people much past the 20 to 25 minutes time zone.”

Once they realized they were on to something, they followed their hunches. Working with SAS Analytics Lab they collected the data and found they were right.

“You can, in fact, resuscitate people and save lives past that 20 to 25 minute time zone and equally important, if we do resuscitate that person, they are just as likely to have a good neurological outcome at those longer times than if it were just in those first few minutes,” Hammerstein said.

The findings are to be published soon.

Be a hero. Learn CPR!

Surprisingly, college sports coaches have not been required to be CPR certified. However, the NCAA is making changes to their rules, following a wave of state and district efforts such as the one that got 40,000 Orange County, Florida students CPR training.

NCAA has amended rules to ensure that any time a school has a “physical countable athletic activity on campus,” a staff member has completed CPR certification for students & schools. This does not mean that the coaches must be certified, but it’s encouraged.

“Several sports don’t have a trainer at every practice, so this empowers the coaches in catastrophic situations,” said Fred Hoiberg, men’s basketball coach at Iowa State. Fred is CPR certified.

Let your voice be heard; contact your university president and ask about CPR requirements for staff and faculty, much like the new law that now requires CPR training in Illinois high schools or the law in Pennsylvania, where lawmakers recently passed a law requiring students to learn CPR.

Be a Hero! Learn CPR with SimpleCPR online certification.

She calls herself ‘The Reptile Rescuer,’ and it isn’t because she saved the life of the cold-blooded, bearded dragon with CPR.

Sherrie Dolezal accidentally set poor Del Sol up for disaster when she forgot to put the rocks back in his swimming pool. She soon found him, his golden-hue turned a deathly shade of blue. She set to work. Unsure of how many chest compressions and breaths to administer, she faked it. After all, it’s very hard to go wrong with CPR.

She pumped his little chest, then held him upside down so the water could drain from his lungs. She even held his mouth open and blew breaths inside.

A veterinarian who specializes in exotic pets thinks Del Sol may have been unconscious, but after all the drowning stories we’ve blogged about here, and considering Del Sol’s tiny lung capacity, it wouldn’t have taken much for him to drown. It only takes a few minutes for a human being to drown, after all.

We’re sure Sherrie saved Del Sol’s exotic life, in more ways than one. Besides the CPR-drowning rescue, she rescues abandoned lizards (turtles, dogs) after their previous owners discard them. We take our CPR hats off to Sherrie.

Be a Hero! Learn CPR.