New study could make CPR much easier

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - New studies suggest a fundamental change in the way we use CPR to save someone. The findings could make giving CPR much easier.

CPR does save lives. Luann Sorrentino saved Joe Fuller.

When Fuller had a heart attack and collapsed at a theater, she immediately gave him CPR, including mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing.

Sorrentino said, "I just didn't hesitate. I just knew right away there was just no time."

But several studies have discovered that mouth-to-mouth breathing is not always needed.

Dr. Myron Weisfeldt of John Hopkins Hospital said, "They can, in fact, save a life by doing the very simple maneuver of chest compression."

Two reports in this week's New England Journal of Medicine showed that for people who suffered cardiac arrest, chest compression alone was just as effective as when rescue breathing was also used. Dr. Weisfeldt commented on those studies, suggesting that compression alone may be better because bystanders would be more likely to do it. And if more people receive CPR, more will live.

"You will perhaps double the chance that that patient will survive," said Dr. Weisfeldt.

Chest compression is easy to learn, even for youngsters. You put the patient on the ground, not in a bed; place your knees close in; push with the heel of your interlocked hands in the middle of the chest; do it about 100 times a minute and use your body weight. You can't hurt the victim, you can only save him.

"It's hard to explain how thankful you feel that that person was there," said Fuller.