Cardiac Arrest
What is a cardiac arrest?
A cardiac arrest is also known as
cardiopulmonary arrest or circulatory
arrest.
It happens when your heart stops pumping blood around the body.
The most common cause of a cardiac arrest is a life
threatening abnormal heart rhythm
called ventricular fibrillation.
Ventricular fibrillation occurs when the electrical activity of
the heart becomes so chaotic that the heart stops pumping and
quivers or ‘fibrillates' instead.
This is a cardiac arrest. It can sometimes be
corrected by giving an electric shock through the chest wall, using
a device called a defibrillator.
Some other reasons why you might have a cardiac arrest are:
if you lose a large amount of blood or fluid- lack of oxygen
- body being very hot or very cold
- blood clot in the lung or coronary arteries
A cardiac arrest is different from a heart attack
If you have a heart attack, you do not always experience the
life threatening rhythms that can lead to a cardiac arrest. A
cardiac arrest does not always happen because you have a heart
condition.
If you have a cardiac arrest, you lose consciousness almost
at once.
There are also no other signs of life such as breathing. This is
the most extreme emergency.
Unless someone starts cardiopulmonary
resuscitation (CPR) within three to four minutes, the
person may suffer permanent damage to the brain and other
organs.
CPR means:
- rescue breathing (inflating the lungs by using mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation), and
- chest compression (pumping the heart by external cardiac
massage), to keep the breathing and circulation going until the
ambulance arrives.
Ambulance staff are trained in advanced resuscitation and all
emergency ambulances carry a defibrillator.
For more information about saving lives please go to our Heartstart section
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