Unfortunately the statistics for CPR survival are not great. Every year, approximately 400,000 people in the United States suffer an out of hospital cardiac arrest. Of these, typically less than 10% survive.

CPR is critical to survival of cardiac arrest patients. Typically, survival falls by approximately 10 – 15% per minute without CPR delivery.

Bystander CPR can improve survival by 3x – early CPR is part of the ‘chain of survival’ required for a cardiac arrest victim to survive.

Statistics for in hospital cardiac arrest are not much better – typically less than 20% of these patients survive. However there are many factors at play here, people in hospital are often very ill so less likely to survive despite prompt medical intervention.

The best chance you can give to someone in cardiac arrest is early effective CPR.