Only emergency rescue breathing.  Didn't have to do chest compression.  A six month old male.  Brought him back to life,  received life saving medal and award for it.

Once when working as a volunteer for a loacl FD. Negative outcome.

1983 or so.... Got a knock on the door at 1:00am.  It was the little old lady across the street, freaking out about her husband.



My roommate and I rushed over - he got compressions, and I got breaths.



His nails were cyanotic when we got there, and we managed to get them pinkish before EMS arrived.  It didn't matter, as he'd had a massive cerebral stroke.



It was really creepy when the wife asked me to grab her husband's wallet as they were wheeling him out on the gurney.  Felt like I was robbing the dead.

Glad I'm not the only one.

And yes, done CPR a lot. Broken many people's ribs. Got most of them back, but many died later in ICU anyway. Codes are a lot more survivable if you're already in hospital with an entire team of trained providers, all necessary medications on hand, and emergency invasive procedure abilities on standby, though.

Twice one lived one died. I did what I could.

Twice.

Saved the first, Lost the second.

First guy was a dick, Second guy was one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. Single parent and left behind a 12 year old son. Life is a bitch like that.

Yes, many times. Some were successful. Have one story. It was early '70s and was employed as a young EMT, on night shift. Called to a home about 1 am. Elderly gentleman was down, unresponsive, no pulse, color very dusky. I really thought resuscitation was pointless but wife insisted he had been talking "just a minute ago". Basically put on a show for her. Got him back and transported to hospital. It was a real learning experience. About a year later was called to same home. This time around 4-5 am. He had obviously been in a lifeless state for quite awhile.  Wife was more accepting of situation this time, but she remembered me and thanked me, profusely, for the previous episode.

I don't. I seriously doubt a layperson could use a BVM correctly or effectively. Hell, I've been using them for 10 years and I still don't always find it easy.

 
Masks with a one-way valve are much better for a layperson. Even then, I think compression-only CPR is probably better for the general public because most folks are going to spend too long trying to use the mask and not doing compressions.

I was playing basketball with some guys from our scout platoon. 22 yo kid passed out during the game. Took us about 20 seconds to figure out how bad he was. Did CPR for about 7 minutes til the medics showed up. He died. He had some kind of congenital heart defect.

Yeah.  I've pushed IV fluids around with the spreading blood.  

We quit doing that shit a LONG time ago.

There was a time when I was one of the most experienced CPR providers in north Alabama.  I was an ER tech in a large hospital for nearly five years.  There were four of us to cover 24/7.  I worked days, and since most MIs happen at 0930, I was one of the two most experienced CPR providers in the area.  Also, I was young and fit then so I would not swap out compressions as often, so very likely, I was the CPR king of north Alabama 1986 - 1991.

Our policy is to work them unless they're cold and stiff or decapitated. Trust me when I say there's been many times I've started on a patient knowing how pointless the effort was only to have the ambulance crew walk in the door, take one look and call it. It's good exercise if nothing else.

Yeah, 1 time. I work in a hotel, got an emergency medical call to a room, no pulse. Started and switched with coworker while I brought ems up. EMS did CPR all the way from room to ambulance. No luck.

I've never performed CPR, but I swear every time my mother would eat corn bread she's choke on it. I had to perform  the Heimlich maneuver on her several times.  We had to stop her from eating it. She had a medical issue that made it hard for her to eat certain things.

The first time I did it I was a young kid, and being a small town, it made the papers. That was when the whole Heimlich maneuver thing was going on in the schools and on the PSAs on tv, so it fit the narrative I guess.

After my kid was born, when he was about 10 he had to do it, and so did my oldest nephew. I think it was eating bread then though.

I think it was around seven times total for her, RIP.

A lot. Although technically in the last 5 or so years I have been running the codes, intubating, and pushing the drugs so the actual pumping and blowing not as much anymore.

And breaths are getting less and less important. It won't be long before it is just compreesions.

yep...sometimes it worked sometimes not....

Yes, but he did not survive his heart attack.

Yes twice...and yes, they are both still dead.

I'm 2 for 3.

Two people at accident scenes.  Both survived.

Unfortunately, the one I lost was my older brother.

Nope. Only on Resusci-Anne. But, I designed the emergency cart used at the UCSF School of Dentistry (my pharmacology prof had given the project to me when I was a sophomore).

i know

<------NR EMT-P

I've done it twice, one made it and the other didn't. Really hefty fella so luckily I didn't break a rib on the guy that made it. The one who didn't make it was an elderly woman and no broken ribs for her either but I was really concerned when it was my time to cycle compressions

Once for a copper on the range.



We came back after chow and he just dropped.






I was on him in seconds.






Couldn't get his airway opened for shit.






Started CPR anyway. After a minute or so his stomach filled with air and and he puked in my mouth.






It wasn't a thing at all. I just cleared his mouth as beat I could and kept going.






When I finally gave out another cop relieved me. He got right down on the puke covered face and did his best.






I thought that was impressive.






As I was standing there, I figured I'd killed him by causing him to aspirate vomit.






The doctor said he was dead when he hit the ground. I figured he was just being nice.



 
 

Twice.

Im at a 50% success rate at this moment

I work in EMS.  FF/PM on 20 call a shift units.

Oh jesus!  Glad your boy is ok!

Good for you.
I worked my career in a resort city.
We were an extremely busy EMS system, one of the busiest in the world.
I went for years, and had maybe one or two cardiac arrests survive. Even though we had great response times, if nobody did anything until we got there, it was rare that we could do anything: it was too late.

BUT, my department spearheaded a project to get everybody possible involved in CPR training, and AED training. Security guards, hotel staff, the airport, gyms, the police........................... They got AEDs that had pads compatible with our cardiac monitors so when we got there, we unplugged the defib pad cable and plugged it right into our monitor. And all of the sudden it became commonplace to have a successful outcome. By the time I retired, I actually sat and wondered about what we might have done wrong if the patient didn't arrive at the ER with a pulse.

In the hotels, everything was on video. When this all first got off the ground, we used to get video from the hotels showing the entire series of events from start to finish. They had video of the guy going down. They had video of hotel security responding and staring good/effective CPR, they had video of security attaching the AED, and finally video of our crews arriving on scene and making the transition to our equipment. It was really amazing.

For those talking about the effectiveness of CPR, this has probably been mentioned (I didn't read the whole thread) but CPR by itself rarely results in some guy just waking up..........BUT what it does do is give EMS something to work with. It gives EMS a viable patient. In case you don't understand what I was saying above: bystander CPR is ESSENTIAL and by far the most important link in the chain. We get there an provide drugs and electrical therapy but drugs and electrical therapy won't work without bystander CPR (unless the guy went down right in front of us).

Yes
Gunshot victim
He died

Yes, on my dad...it didn't work RIP Dad 8/7/15

Yes. Many times.

Anesthesiology residencies are generally done at level 1 trauma and regional referral centers. I've carried the code pager many, many shifts. I was also a staff anesthesiologist at a trauma and regional referral center in private practice. Lots of codes involved with trauma and ICU patients as well as generally sick patients inside and outside the OR.

Many saves. Many losses.

Many times. Some ended good, more probably ended badly.

Rural EMS so delay in arrival + delay in detection = CPR and defibrillator survival to discharge is pretty much 0.

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Never had to, but I did stop my Mom from giving CPR to my Dad when he died.  Bladder cancer that spread, in extreme pain from nodes in his spine, chemo wrecked his kidneys, refused dialysis, died at home of renal failure.    She wasn't accepting of Dad's choice.

Once.  A couple months ago, a little before Christmas.  I woke up to a woman's screams from outside, at my apartment complex early in the morning.  I figured one of the neighboring couples was going at it.  When I stuck my head out the door, I could hear her saying "he's dead, he's dead!".  It was coming from upstairs, so I ran up the stairs, still in just my pj bottoms.  I found the young woman holding her 6 month old baby, kneeling outside her front door, rocking him and screaming that he's dead, it's her fault, he suffocated.  The other neighbors were standing there looking, one was dialing 911.  It took a half second to register that I had to do something, anything.  I had first-aid training as a Boy Scout, first responder training about 20 years ago, and brushed-up on infant/child CPR 4 years ago when my son was born, and never had to treat much more than a gash on a drunk guys head.  THEN THIS. I grabbed the limp baby from his mothers arms, took him inside the apartment where it was warmer, and started CPR. The mother was screaming, the female neighbors that had gathered were screaming. I had the dude who dialed 911 put his phone down by me, so I could speak to the dispatcher. I was all I could do to keep up the CPR and keep communicating with 911 over the screams.

 I thought that maybe some color was coming back to his face as I was performing CPR.  The very few minutes (we have an outstanding volunteer fire/ems service in our small town) it took the ambulance to arrive, seemed surreal.  I let the EMT's take over as I reported what had happened, and actions I had taken.  Then I went back to my apartment, smoked a smoke,  and settled down for a few minutes before getting ready and going to work.  

 As I walked to my truck to head out, the police stopped me and asked me to fill out a statement. I did, then headed to work.

 A couple hours later, one of the EMT's stopped by my work to let me know how happy he was to get to the scene, and find someone actually doing something.
 
 He told me that I had done everything I could, and that the baby didn't make it. He also told me that if I needed to talk, that he was there to listen anytime.  I know most of the FF and EMS, and this particular EMT was the one who trained me in first-aid as a Cub Scout.

 I think the mother rolled over on the baby in her sleep. (don't know for sure)

 Still bugs me a bit. I know I did everything I could, but still bugs me a bit.
 

Too many times to count, two were witnessed sudden cardiac arrests with an AED immediately available survived, one of them (a middle-aged male physician) made a full recovery.  Never personally saw any success with traumatic arrests.

I too had a bad infant CPR case that was much like boy-scout's experience.  A family who was visiting other family members, the mother found her 7 month old son unresponsive, not breathing after putting him to sleep a couple hours earlier.  When I arrived, she was hysterical on the front lawn, I had to just disregard her and walk right past her since the child was in a crib in the grandparent's bedroom, and found a neighbor in the room on the phone with 911 trying to get talked through on CPR instructions.  Cyanotic, checked pulse and respiration was negative, picked the kid up and put him atop the dresser for a suitable surface for compressions.  Due to the proportions of an infant head and body, I put a family photo album underneath the torso to try and get the chin up for an airway, but there was a bit of rigor setting in already at the jaw.  The neighbor assisted in removing the child's clothing and I remember while doing compressions thinking to myself "wow this feels just like working on the dummy in class" and you work through it just like you did in class.  AED (infant AED use was relatively new at the time and I figured I might be one of the first to ever have to use this in the field) said no shock advised.  The child was later transported and pronounced at the hospital, I am told that it was ruled a SIDS death.   You never forget the experience but you feel confident afterward that you did everything that you could that day to help at a moment where so many others did not have the knowledge or ability to do so.  It also sets some perspective in your life as a benchmark you compare the troubles of your day to what that mother went through that day.

10 years as a Paramedic and 15 years as a Nurse, done CPR a few times.

What do you mean "probably "?  If it didn't end good, it ended badly.

Mmmmmm, that is the shit that makes people eat faces.


At least in Florida.


Bad combo.


Oh, and yes....it will tire you out if you do it for real.

I'm 0-2 but gave it my best

Once. My father. 23 years ago.

thats a great reply

Yes.  Hit and run on a pedestrian.  11 year old kid.  She didn't make it.

The bastard that did it was drunk but caught eventually when company van was getting repaired.  He had put some deer hair on the bumper.

We got an Award from the Regional EMS board in NYS for three saves on the same block within 4 months and two in the same house....with the same 4 EMT's...this is all as of January this year


fucking crazy



I hope that people take their drug use alot more seriously when they see there mom dead in the drive way and they see an EMT run from his POV and start doing compressions on their mother lying in the mud in the driveway yelling for his ambulance to get him a BVM and an AED while they sit there and say "all she did was Crack"...the scumbags always live



But in the end that woman i saved, after she walked out of the hospital instantly moved out of that house, to another location and checked into rehab to get clean.  I sincerely hope that almost dying has shown her that drugs are not the answer to life's problems.