People who survive from a cardiac arrest are incredible. If you really think about as soon as someone’s heart stops time is ticking against them. Cardiac arrest, is considered to be the most emergency you can get. On average a person who go into cardiac arrest only have 6 minutes to live if the condition goes untreated. According to Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation each day in the U.S. survival rate is 10% and in children is only 5%.
Transweb.org has really good information on what happens to the brain when it is deprived of oxygen; after 1 minute of not breathing brain cells begin to die, survival is still high; 3 minutes, serious brain damage is likely; 10 minutes, many brain cells have died and recovery is unlikely; 15 minutes, recovery is virtually impossible.
The time averages that I found for an ambulance to reach an emergency ranges from 6 minutes up to 11 minutes. There are reasons from traffic, to poor communication from dispatch to the Ambulance Company, other emergencies, and distance. So you can image that the chances of help coming in time are very low. Surprisingly, there is also no government mandate on ambulance arrival times.
From what I was told, I was deprived of oxygen somewhere between 5 and 8 minutes. There’s not a real accurate time that I have been given on just how long. Defiantly no one was keeping time they were focused on saving me. There was also miscommunication to the EMT’s on the call that was placed from my teammates to get help for me. Thank goodness that the EMT’s got there and took me to the hospital. It’s just crazy how things can unfold so quickly, and am very thankful for everyone who was there.