To someone in cardiac arrest, CPR can mean the difference between death and stayin' alive.
A few months ago, a friend of mine collapsed as he was about to enter a grocery store near his home in England.

Two women who were in the parking lot rushed to help him and attempted to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation to revive him. One of the women was crying because my friend Terry had turned blue, and she said she had never seen a dead person before.

Someone went into the store to call an ambulance.

The store manager, whose job requires him to know CPR, came out to help.

CPR is an emergency procedure that can help save a person’s life if breathing or the heart stops.

When the heart stops beating, a person is in cardiac arrest. The heart can't pump blood to the brain and the rest of the body. Death can occur in minutes without treatment.

CPR uses chest compressions to imitate the heart’s pumping and keep the blood flowing through the body.

Cardiac arrest and a heart attack are not the same thing. Cardiac arrest happens when the heart malfunctions and stops beating unexpectedly. It is an “electrical” problem. If performed in the first few minutes of cardiac arrest, CPR can double or triple the chance of survival. 

A heart attack happens when blood flow to the heart is blocked. It is a “circulation” problem.

Nine out of 10 people who have cardiac arrest outside a hospital die. A person who has a heart attack can still be talking and breathing and does not need CPR, but does need to get to the hospital right away.

Signs of cardiac arrest include:

• Unresponsiveness even if shaken or shouted at.
• Not breathing.
• Gas pains.

If someone is in cardiac arrest, call 911 right away. CPR should be performed until medical professionals arrive.

To give CPR, push down hard and fast in the center of the chest at a rate of 100 to 120 pushes per minute. Let the chest come back up to its normal position after each push.

And never let it be said that the American Heart Association does not have a sense of humor.

The AHA recommends timing the pushes to the beat of the song “Stayin’ Alive,” the Bee Gees' release that stayed alive on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for four weeks in 1978.

My friend Terry had surgery to install a pacemaker and stents to keep blood vessels open.

Married and father of four children, Terry is doing well and recently took a vacation in County Kerry, Ireland.

God bless Terry, his family and CPR.

Stayin’ alive, indeed.