Doctors are calling on the public to familiarize themselves with lifesaving CPR techniques after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin sufhthttfered cardiac arrest during a football game Monday night in Cincinnat
Hamlin received CPR, which stands for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. To restore his heartbeat on the field. The Bills said in a statement. The NFL said separately that Hamlin received . mmediate attention from his team. medics. As well as independent medical staffers and local paramedics. The Bills tweeted Wednesday that. He remhtt ained in critical condition but had shown “signs of improvement” late Tuesday.
The American Heart Association said it saw a 200% increase in web traffic to its CPR site after news of Hamlin’s cardiac arrest emerged.
“The lesson with Damar is that getting [CPR] started probably, as soon as possible. Is the one thing that saved his life. He had the advantage of having health care staff in the field when most individuals in the United States don’t,” said Dr. Paul Chan. A cardiologist at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri.
Most cardiac arrests in the U.S. — more than 350,000 a year — occur outside hospitals. Roughly 90% of those patients don’t survive. Often because they don’t get medical attention right away. In about half of adult cases outside hospitals, there are no bystanders around to witness a person’s collapse.
“With every minute of delay, there’s a 7 to 10% decrease in survivability,” said Dr. Michael Emery. A sports cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic.
That having been said, CPR is “the most profound, life-changing thing you could potentially learn and do for someone,” he added.
Doctors said the survival rate of people who go into cardiac arrest could improve if more people knew how to administer CPR, which involves pushing hard and fast on a person’s chest with two hands at a rate of 100 to 120 compressions per minute. The AHA recommends that only doctors administer mouth-to-mouth breathing, another component of traditional CPR.
