Eastern Long Island First Aid, LLC

would you know what to do if the person next to you suddenly collapsed? each year, approximately 424,000 people in the u.s. experience non-traumatic sudden cardiac arrest. that is approximately 1,000 people a day. this is roughly equivalent to the number of people who die from alzheimers’ disease, assault with firearms, breast cancer, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, diabetes, hiv, house fires, motor vehicle accidents, prostate cancer and suicides combined. in fact, the incidence of sudden cardiac death is nearly 10 times higher than the incidence of death from breast cancer. whether or not the victim survives depends largely upon the immediate intervention of bystanders. every minute that the victim does not receive cpr their chance of survival decreases by approximately 10 percent. after four minutes without cpr irreversable brain damage is almost guaranteed. unfortunately less than a third of victims of sudden cardiac arrest receive cpr from a bystander. the number of victims tre