What to Do During a Heart Attack

Let’s talk about what you should do if you suspect someone has had a heart attack that has lead to a cardiac arrest. And what I'm going to do here is I'm going to use this CPR dummy to demonstrate what you should do. And the first thing I mentioned before is don’t panic. If you see someone down, “Can you hear me” you see if they are responsive because if they’re responsive, they’re not in cardiac arrest. Check for breathing. See if the chest is rising. If it’s not, you want to check for a pulse.

The carotid artery lies right next to the trachea which is the airway. If you don’t feel it, we call it in the get on the chest. Start chest compressions right in the middle of the sternum, 100 beats per minute. This perfuses the brain until help can arrive and believe it or not most people have enough oxygen in their system that if you do this for five, 10 minutes someone can have a good outcome. And if they do regain consciousness or if you think someone had a heart attack and there are no contraindications, aspirin can help thin the blood until they can get further help.

And the one thing that I want to emphasize is if someone is dead, they’re dead. Getting on that chest, giving compressions gives them a change to survive.