By Howard Fischer
Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)
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Copyright 2007 The Arizona Daily Star
PHOENIX — If you have a heart attack on the street in Arizona, the chances are just one in five that anybody will stop to help.
And that’s even in situations where there are automatic external defibrillators nearby. The result is that just 3 percent of people who have out-of-hospital heart attacks survive.
Now Arizona’s emergency medical chief has $200,000 from the state’s Health Crisis Fund to do something about it. And Dr. Bentley Bobrow said he intends to use the money to convince people that even without formal training they can — and should — do something to save a life.
The problem is on two fronts, Bobrow said.
First, he said people who haven’t been trained in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation presume they can’t do anything. And even those who have often are reluctant to act, he said.
Bobrow said there are all sorts of rules about bending a person’s head back, checking for an airway and then sealing your lips around those of the victim.
“People are reluctant to lock lips on a stranger,” he said. And even if they will, he said the rules — how many breaths, followed by how many chest compressions — can be confusing.
Bobrow said research shows that simple chest compressions can be as effective in saving a life.
In fact, he said, doing something is virtually always better than doing nothing.
“If an adult collapses right in front of you and they’re unresponsive, you shake them and they don’t move at all, tell someone to call 911,” he said. And if there is an automated defibrillator available, have someone bring it.
But he said don’t just sit and wait for help.
Bobrow said there already are fliers that are made available to utilities to mail out with their bills, a sort of how-to guide for heart attacks that people can put on their refrigerators.
The Health Crisis Fund consists of up to $1 million each year from tobacco taxes.
State law gives the governor the power to use the money if she determines there is “a health crisis or a significant potential for a health crisis.” While the law has specific examples, such as chemical contaminations and interruption of delivery of basic health services, it also includes any situation where the health status in the state is, was or could be affected.
The Legislature installed defibrillators after the 2001 death of state Sen. Andy Nichols. The Tucson Democrat was working in his office late one evening when he collapsed.
One of his medical students performed CPR. But a defibrillator was not available until firefighters arrived several minutes later.
One of those defibrillators may have saved the life last year of Rep. Ray Barnes, R-Phoenix, who collapsed during a House vote.