cpr

[palaniyapan]

What is CPR and what does it do?

[ratbag66]

Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation - mouth-to-mouth and heart massage used on patients who are not breathing and have no heart beat.  It  enables blood to be pumped around the body and oxygen to reach the lungs until further medical help arrives.

[stevie21]

Agreed - although we always think that we breath out carbon dioxide, there's also lots of oxygen that we breath out too (40 or 60 percent of our breath, I think). This is breathed into the "victim's" lungs a few times, and then pressure is put onto their heart to squeeze it and circulate this oxygenated blood around the body as the heart would normally do if it was beating.

It's apparently quite rare (outside of Hollywood) for someone to regain consciousness as a result of doing this alone. If you're ever unfortunate enough to be performing this, don't expect the person to sit bolt upright after a while and spit out some seaweed/seawater and cough lots. Especially if they're not near the sea.

[gazzawazza]

Actually, when we breathe out there's only about 16 or 17% oxygen.  The rest is made up of Carbon Dioxide (about 4%) and Nitrogen (about 80%).

[Golem]

It's the Canadian Pacific Railway, based in Alberta, and for 120 have been responsible for transporting goods by rail throughout North America.

No figures exist re. the number of people who have died while waiting for CPR to arrive.