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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Cough CPR could kill you.

I’d like to find out who is behind this sort of thing.

There is a dangerous letter making the rounds on the internet. It exists in several forms. It starts by describing typical male heart attack symptoms. It then tells you how to do CPR on yourself by coughing. You don’t do CPR on a heart attack victim – and the last thing a heart attack victim needs is vigorous exercise while his or her oxygen-starved heart muscle is dying. It claims that it was published in some medical school's journal - originally Journal of the University of Rochester Medical School. (This school has publicly denied ever publishing any such article.)

Snopes also covers this: http://www.snopes.com/medical/homecure/coughcpr.asp

Here’s a pseudo power-point version: (with my comments in blue.)

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