Either they had an AED & the reporter did not mention it, or....

Here's the logic flow: If an MD was doing CPR, it was because the student had suffered an out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest. If the student was in the ER, awaiting transfer to an appropriate hospital, an AED was used on him, because it's extremely rare that someone's heart will spontaneously resume beating when treated only with CPR. If an AED was used at the scene before EMS arrived, there's a really good chance that the child will survive with major brain functions intact. If they had to wait for the ambulance to arrive and use their defibrillator, the odds of a good outcome are a lot lower. There's no way to tell from the story whether or not there was an AED on scene, but the story does give us an opportunity to reflect that there should always be an AED at every athletic match or practice. The article starts below.

A Richmond High School band member is in critical condition in the Reid Hospital emergency room after collapsing at the Richmond Homecoming football game.

The male student is awaiting transfer to the Children’s Medical Center of Dayton, Ohio.

Band director Terry Bettner said that the group performed the “National Anthem” before the start of the game and during the performance another band student noticed that the male student was having difficulty breathing.

The ill student was ushered to a bench and his condition deteriorated. Dr. Gregory Woods, who was on hand and who helps the Richmond football team with some medical issues, did CPR.

The student was then taken to Reid Hospital. Richmond High School principal Rae Woolpy, assistant principal Rachel Etherington and Richmond superintendent Allen Bourff all went to the hospital, along with the teen’s two sisters, who also are involved in Richmond Community Schools’ music program.

At about 9 p.m., the student was in critical condition in the Reid emergency room awaiting transfer to Children’s Medical Center.

No further information about the cause of his illness was available.

Bettner said that he is thankful that the student became ill at an event where medical attention was immediately available, rather than at home alone.

So how does this example of 30% of arrests differ from the other 70%?

Longview student collapses at basketball practice

A student collapsed and briefly stopped breathing during an open basketball practice at Mark Morris High School in Longview.

The Associated Press

LONGVIEW, Wash. —

A student collapsed and briefly stopped breathing during an open basketball practice at Mark Morris High School in Longview.

A coach and parent gave CPR Sunday to 16-year-old Spencer Best of Longview until paramedics arrived and used a heart defibrillator.

His father, Rich Best, told The Daily News (http://is.gd/fRM2vn) Spencer will remain in intensive care for a couple more days this week at Randall Children's Hospital at Legacy Emmanuel Medical Center in Portland.

He says Spencer is alert and communicating. He says the men who gave him CPR saved his life.

---

Information from: The Daily News, http://www.tdn.com

How does this differ? Somebody did something before the ambulance got to the scene.

It would have been a lot more certain that the outcome would be happy if there had been an AED on the sidelines - as there needs to be for every match and practice session.

Please bug your local school officials until they have an AED at the sidelines for every match and practice for every sport except, perhaps, the chess club!

CPR + Prompt Defibrillation Really Works - at least ten times better than not doing anything!

A Tucson woman saves her husband with hands-only CPR
Posted: Sep 21, 2012 11:21 AM by Ryan Haarer
Updated: Sep 21, 2012 11:21 AM
KVOA.com

TUCSON- With over 380,000 cardiac arrests every year only about 70 percent of people know how to do CPR, according to the American Heart Association.

Recently a Tucson family had quite a scare. E.J. Marx felt chest and arm pain during a soccer game. His wife Whitney got him and their infant son Kahn into the car. On the way to the hospital, E.J. went into cardiac arrest.

Whitney handled the situation perfectly. She called 911, pulled E.J. out of the car and began chest compressions. She continued until emergency responders arrived.

E.J. spent two weeks in a coma, but is thankful his wife knew what to do, as it probably saved his life.

The American Heart Association recently launched a website with a one minute tutorial on how to do hands only CPR. They are also trying to make CPR a graduation requirement in Arizona. That would give 65,000 more people the ability to save a life.

See more of E.J. and Whitney's story in the video above. To learn CPR basics visit the new website at www.HandsOnlyCPR.org.

From WFTV: the best SCA vs AMI explanation I've seen in the media

Cardiac Concerns: Saving Kids from Sudden Death

FLORIDA — WHAT CAUSES SUDDEN CARDIAC ARREST:Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is a condition in which the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating. If this happens, blood stops flowing to the brain and other vital organs. SCA is not the same as a heart attack. A heart attack occurs if blood flow to part of the heart muscle is blocked. During a heart attack, the heart usually doesn't suddenly stop beating. SCA, however, may happen after or during recovery from a heart attack. People who have heart disease are at higher risk for SCA. However, SCA can happen in people who appear healthy and have no known heart disease or other risk factors for SCA. Certain diseases and conditions can cause the electrical problems that lead to SCA. Examples include coronary heart disease (CHD), also called coronary artery disease; severe physical stress; certain inherited disorders; and structural changes in the heart. (Source: nhlbi.nih.gov)

SIGNS OF SCA: Usually, the first sign of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is loss of consciousness (fainting). At the same time, no heartbeat (or pulse) can be felt. Some people may have a racing heartbeat or feel dizzy or light-headed just before they faint. Within an hour before SCA, some people have chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea (feeling sick to the stomach), or vomiting. (Source: nhlbi.nih.gov)

PREVENTION AND TREATMENT: If you’ve already had SCA, you’re at high risk of having it again. Research shows that an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) reduces the chances of dying from a second SCA. If you’re at high risk for a first SCA, your doctor may prescribe a type of medicine called a beta blocker to help lower your risk for SCA. Other treatments for CHD, such as angioplasty or coronary artery bypass grafting, also may lower your risk for SCA. If you have no known risk factors for SCA, CHD seems to be the cause of most SCAs in adults. CHD also is a major risk factor for angina (chest pain or discomfort) and heart attack, and it contributes to other heart problems. Following a healthy lifestyle with diet and exercise can help you lower your risk for CHD, SCA, and other heart problems. Also, try quitting smoking, losing weight, and treating other issues like high blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes. To treat SCA, defibrillation is needed within minutes to keep them alive. You should give cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to a person having SCA until defibrillation can be done. People who are at risk for SCA may want to consider having an AED at home. If you survive SCA, you'll likely be admitted to a hospital for ongoing care and treatment. In the hospital, your medical team will closely watch your heart. They may give you medicines to try to reduce the risk of another SCA. (Source: nhlbi.nih.gov)

Prolonged CPR Holds Benefits, a Study Shows

Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Staff members at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn in 2010 trying to revive a patient who suffered a cardiac arrest.

By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: September 4, 2012

When a hospital patient goes into cardiac arrest, one of the most difficult questions facing the medical team is how long to continue cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Now a new study involving hundreds of hospitals suggests that many doctors may be giving up too soon.

The study found that patients have a better chance of surviving in hospitals that persist with CPR for just nine minutes longer, on average, than hospitals where efforts are halted earlier.

There are no clear, evidence-based guidelines for how long to continue CPR efforts.

The findings challenge conventional medical thinking, which holds that prolonged resuscitation for hospitalized patients is usually futile because when patients do survive, they often suffer permanent neurological damage. To the contrary, the researchers found that patients who survived prolonged CPR and left the hospital fared as well as those who were quickly resuscitated.

The study, published online Tuesday in The Lancet, is one of the largest of its kind and one of the first to link the duration of CPR efforts with survival rates. It should prompt hospitals to review their practices and consider changes if their resuscitation efforts fall short, several experts said.

Between one and five of every 1,000 hospitalized patients suffer a cardiac arrest. Generally they are older and sicker than nonhospitalized patients who suffer cardiac arrest, and their outcomes are generally poor, with fewer than 20 percent surviving to be discharged from the hospital.

“One of the challenges we face during an in-hospital cardiac arrest is determining how long to continue resuscitation if a patient remains unresponsive,” said Dr. Zachary D. Goldberger, the lead author of the new study, which was financed by the American Hospital Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. “This is one area in which there are no guidelines.”

Dr. Goldberger and his colleagues gathered data from the world’s largest registry of in-hospital cardiac arrest, maintained by the American Heart Association, identifying 64,339 patients who went into cardiac arrest at 435 hospitals in the United States from 2000 to 2008.

The researchers examined adult hospital patients in regular beds or intensive care units, excluding patients in the emergency room and those who suffered arrest during procedures. They calculated the median duration of resuscitation efforts for the nonsurvivors rather than the survivors, in order to measure a hospital’s tendency to engage in more prolonged resuscitation efforts.

One of the first surprises was the significant variation in duration of CPR among the hospitals, ranging from a median of 16 minutes in hospitals spending the least amount of time trying to revive patients to a median of 25 minutes among those spending the most — a difference of more than 50 percent.

The researchers initially thought they would find that some patients were being subjected to protracted resuscitation efforts in vain, said the senior author, Dr. Brahmajee Nallamothu, an associate professor at the University of Michigan and a cardiologist at the Ann Arbor VA Medical Center.

But as it turned out, those extra minutes made a positive difference. Patients in hospitals with the longest CPR efforts were 12 percent more likely to survive and go home from the hospital than those with the shortest times.

Dr. Nallamothu and his colleagues found that neurological function was similar, regardless of the duration of CPR.

The patients who got the most added benefit from prolonged CPR were those whose conditions do not respond to defibrillation, or being shocked. The extra time spent on prolonged CPR may give doctors time to analyze the situation and try different interventions, they said.

“You can keep circulating blood and oxygen using CPR for sometimes well over 30 minutes and still end up with patients who survive and, importantly, have good neurological survival,” said Dr. Jerry P. Nolan, a consultant in anesthesia and critical care medicine at Royal United Hospital NHS Trust in Bath, England, who wrote a commentary accompanying the article.

Dr. Stephen J. Green, associate chairman of cardiology at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, who was not involved in the study, said hospitals might have to modify their practices in light of the new research.

“You don’t want to be on the low end of this curve,” Dr. Green said. “Hospitals that are outliers should reassess what they’re doing and think about extending the duration of their CPR.”

Still, he and other experts worried that the new findings could lead to protracted efforts to resuscitate patients for whom it is inappropriate because they are at the end of their lives or for other reasons.

“There isn’t going to be a magic number,” Dr. Green said. “If you’re in there 10 to 15 minutes, you need to push higher, but as you get up higher and higher, you get to the point of very little return.”

The study authors acknowledge that their research does not indicate that longer CPR is better for every patient.

“The last thing we want is for the take-home message to be that everyone should have a long resuscitation,” Dr. Goldberger said. “We’re not able to identify an optimal duration for all patients in the hospital.”

I wish I could reach all the newspaper and television reporters.  Many say "heart attack" when what they are talking about is "cardiac arrest."

Why is this a big deal?  Both are true medical emergencies, and both require bystander intervention for survival, but each is treated differently.

Most people don't die of heart attacks, unless the heart attack leads to a cardiac arrest. A cardiac arrest happens when your heart stops beating and you stop breathing. You are clinically dead. Many cardiac arrests are caused by severe heart attacks, and many are not.

A cardiac arrest is an electrical problem. A heart attack is a plumbing problem. You don't do CPR for a heart attack. You don't use therapeutic hypothermia for a heart attack.

If you see someone having a heart attack, you call 911, you let the victim assume whatever position is most comfortable, you give the victim an aspirin to chew, and you do not let the victim eat or drink anything.

If you see someone have a cardiac arrest, you call 911, you get the victim on their back on a hard, flat surface, you tilt their head back to open the airway, and you begin pressing the chest at least 2 inches deep at a rate of 100-120 times per minute. If there is an AED nearby have someone get it for you and use it. Don't stop compressing the chest unless someone else takes over for you, unless an attached AED says "don't touch the patient," or unless the patient starts to move and look around.

Calling a cardiac arrest a heart attack is a problem, because it promotes confusion in the bystander community.

Two people in the USA died of a cardiac arrest during the time it took me to type this note.

See www.sca-aware.org and slicc.org for more information.

Cardiac Arrest in Young More Common than Thought.

Cardiac arrest is relatively rare in young people, but it may be more common than experts have thought, according to a new study.

Using 30 years of data from King County in Washington, researchers found that the rate of cardiac arrest among children and young adults was about 2.3 per 100,000 each year.

That's not a big risk. But the figure is substantially higher than the "widely accepted" estimate for young athletes (not just young people in general), said senior researcher Dr. Jonathan Drezner.

According to that estimate, one in 200,000 young athletes (up to age 35) suffers cardiac arrest each year.

Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly stops pumping blood to the rest of the body. It is fatal within minutes without immediate treatment.

A major cause of cardiac arrest is ventricular fibrillation, where the heart's main pumping chamber starts to quiver chaotically. A device called a defibrillator can "shock" the heart back into a normal rhythm - though even with treatment, cardiac arrest is often deadly.

The good news from the current study is that young people's survival of cardiac arrest got much better over the 30-year period. It rose from 13 percent in the 1980s, to 40 percent between 2000 and 2009.

"It's very gratifying to see that our efforts are paying off," said Dr. Dianne L. Atkins, a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

Research over the years has allowed experts to figure out the best way to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and public campaigns have been done to encourage more people to learn CPR.

CPR cannot "restart" the heart, but it can keep blood and oxygen moving through the victim's body until medical help arrives.

"Learn CPR and be willing to do it," said Atkins, who wrote an editorial published with the study in the journal Circulation.

The true rate of cardiac arrest among kids and young adults has long been debated.

Drezner said he thinks his team's findings come closer to the "real" figure than most past studies, because of its methodology.

The findings come from a cardiac arrest database kept by King County in Washington State. Emergency medical services report all cases of cardiac arrest to the registry.

Drezner's team also used other records, like autopsy reports and hospital records, to try to figure out the cause of each cardiac arrest.

Between 1980 and 2009, there were 361 cases of cardiac arrest logged for children and adults age 35 and younger - including 26 toddlers under 3, most of whom had congenital abnormalities.

That amounted to a rate of 2.28 cases for every 100,000 young people each year.

Atkins agreed that this study gives a clearer picture of the true incidence of cardiac arrest in young people. "It's the best data we have."

And, she said, researchers should know how common the problem is before widespread screening programs, if any, can be put in place.

The idea of screening kids for heart problems that could cause cardiac arrest is controversial. Some countries, including Italy and Israel, have mandatory electrocardiogram (EKG) screening for young athletes. The U.S. is not one of them.

For now, Atkins suggested that parents be aware that cardiac arrest can strike children -- but also keep the risk in context.

"It is still a very uncommon event," she said. "I don't think the message is that parents should be so frightened that they don't let their kids go out for competitive sports."

Fox News 8-31-12