Be Prepared To Perform CPR In An Emergency
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – February is Heart Disease Awareness month. Every year, 1,300 Minnesotans have a heart attack, and of that number, only 200 survive.
WCCO’s Jamie Yuccas went to the University of Minnesota to learn what to do at home in an emergency.
“No CPR is much, much worse than just compression-only CPR,” said Dr. Demetris Yannopoulos, associate professor of medicine.
Most people think of CPR (or cardiopulmonary resuscitation) as both breathing and chest compressions and hesitate to do mouth-to-mouth with someone they don’t know. But how those compressions are done matters, too.
Yannopoulos said to go about a third of the way down the chest bone with the heel of your hand, and then put all of your weight into the push. Continue the motion hard and fast, and don’t stop.
“Some people worry they’re going to hurt someone, but that has never been the case,” Yannopoulos said. “It has to be performed very deep and at a rate of 100 per minute. … You are now taking over the heart function, the heart doesn’t stop for anything.”