CPR Machine Proves More Effective Than Paramedics

July 19, 2005 — -- Almost 1,000 Americans die each day from cardiac arrest, according to the American Heart Association. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is a critical life-saving technique, but nationwide it saves less than 10 percent of victims.

The problem is, studies show, even emergency medical teams often perform CPR improperly. Now some cities have turned to a portable machine to do the job.

Manual chest compressions usually restore only about 40 percent of blood flow to the brain and about 20 percent of blood flow to the heart, meaning that even those who are saved are often left with brain damage.

"We're probably not compressing hard enough," said Dr. Paul Pepe, chair of Emergency Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. "We're probably not compressing fast enough, and we're probably interrupting to give breaths too often to be effective, or as effective as we could be."

The solution, say some paramedics, is a new portable chest compressor.

Once the victim has been strapped in, the machine calculates the person's shape and size to deliver the optimal chest compression -- just the right pressure and frequency for that particular patient.

Unlike manual CPR, the machine can compress the chest without stopping.

"I feel very passionate about this machine and believe that it not only saved my life but allowed me to have a complete recovery," said Caralee Weich, a cardiac arrest survivor.

Weich went into cardiac arrest on a San Francisco sidewalk last year. She had no pulse for 30 minutes, but she was hooked up to an automated chest compressor.