People can get traumatic injuries as a result of an accident, a crime, a suicide attempt, or a prank that has gone wrong. They can fall, jump or be pushed off a very high place. They can get into traffic collisions. They can be shot at or stabbed. They can even be hit hard on the chest or the head by a fastball while just in practice or in play. In certain cases, the injuries sustained from these traumatic incidents can be life-threatening, even fatal. In these instances, the victims may lose consciousness and stop breathing. It may even be that their hearts will be found no longer beating. If you were at the site of the incidence, should you intervene and give CPR?
In severe trauma cases, many argue that giving CPR would at best only be futile. At worse, it could make matters even worse. How do you do chest compressions on an unconscious person who has a knife still stuck between his ribs? A 2006 study published on PubMed on the outcomes for trauma victims who received pre-hospital CPR says only five percent survived, or at least survived long enough to be recorded as having been discharged from the hospital. Overall, the mortality rate was 95 percent, not at all very encouraging for the lay would-be rescuer.
When you come face to face with a trauma victim, whether of an accident or of a violent crime, your immediate focus should be on how to get him or her at the soonest time possible to the emergency room (ER) of the nearest hospital where he or she can be given surgery and proper medication. So before attempting anything else, you should call first and call fast, dial 911 and report the emergency. Following that, once you are sure that professional help is already on the way, you may want to approach the victim for a better assessment of his or her condition.
If the victim is responsive, you should probably just wait for the ambulance to arrive. At most, you can provide company, aiming to keep him or her as calm as possible as you endure the wait. If he or she is unresponsive and unconscious but still breathing, you may also be better off just waiting for the professional rescuers to get there, unless of course there is profuse bleeding. In this case, you can try to apply pressure and dressings on the open wound to minimize or halt the flow of blood.
If it happens that the victim is unresponsive, unconscious and not breathing, you may have to take the risk of administering CPR, especially if the incident happened at a remote location. If you have reason to doubt that the ambulance will be able to make it there in under ten minutes, you may have to take a chance at resuscitating the victim even if it means moving him or her bodily. Remember that permanent damage to the brain will begin after just 4 minutes of oxygen deprivation. Forget about the possible neck injury that may result once you move the victim. In 8 minutes, he or she will become brain dead anyway.
