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AndringRasew t1_j336z95 wrote

Reply to comment by bingold49 in Damar Hamlin awake and holding hands with family, his agency tells CNN, following his cardiac arrest during NFL game by adria2na

He very well could have. Had they taken any longer to administer CPR, had they not defibrillated him fast enough, had the ambulance been delayed.

He's one of the lucky ~50%.

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RavenDarkholme084 t1_j33nk0w wrote

Facts^^^ I work in the icu and people who usually have a heart attack out in the field have such low chance of coming out of it intact. I’ve seen it so many times where they end up in our icu and yes they resuscitate them on the way but it’s too late… as an, there has been extensive brain damage due to not getting blood flow to the brain

That is why high quality cpr as soon as the heart stops and early defibrillation (if it’s a shockable rhythm) is important. The whole goal of cpr is to move blood that has oxygen to all the tissues (brain is the most important one). Kidneys may fail and have an acute injury but can make a relatively good recovery. Not the brain though. It’s good all was done within a timely manner

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Emotional-Text7904 t1_j34390d wrote

Yeah, and a lot of people don't actually know how rarely CPR actually works. It's always worth it to try but sometimes like only 3% or some crazy low number are actually able to be resuscitated after needing CPR. But imo you always need to try and do your best and keep that hope

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RavenDarkholme084 t1_j35z81v wrote

A lot of family members at the hospital are also shocked when I tell them doing CPR involves breaking the ribs but after I explain to them that the whole point of cpr is to pump blood through, and our heart is like a sponge and we need to get to that sponge to squeeze , reabsorb more blood, and squeeze again, just to move things through, they finally get it.

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justpaisley t1_j33rhf6 wrote

Less than that probably! (Non-medical professional here.) I had read that the staff had proned him while he was on the vent to relieve stress on his lungs, and that if they do that, it's usually gotten to about the 30% survival zone. I'm relieved and amazed to hear about him being awake and responding. I really thought a best case scenario for this guy was going to be a persistent vegetative state.

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RavenDarkholme084 t1_j35z05i wrote

The fact that they started cpr really fast and got him the medical help really quick helped a ton.

What I don’t understand is why they proned him. The only reason to prone people is if they are having issues staying oxygenated (even with the ventilator on the max amount of support settings they can do). Unless there is new evidence showing that proning somehow has positive outcomes in after the heart stops/has an arrhythmia? I haven’t heard about this yet unless we are behind on research. That is for the doctors to deal with. I just know we don’t normally prone unless they see a reason to. Some people may not even be stable enough to prone. It’s wild. Some you barely touch and their oxygen plummets. Those don’t generally make it though

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