Ideally, everyone would be trained in CPR. If you’re not, you may be afraid to try to help someone in an emergency. Still, it’s always better to do what you can than to do nothing at all if it means potentially saving a person’s life. The American Heart Association recommends a slightly different approach to doing CPR depending on how well-trained you are:
- If you are trained: Check to see if the person has a pulse and is breathing. If there is no pulse or breathing within 10 seconds, start CPR with 30 chest compressions followed by two rescue breaths. Repeat the sequence until the person starts breathing.
- If you are untrained, or trained but not too confident in your abilities: If you’ve never been trained in CPR, or have been but are unsure about giving rescue breaths, then use hands-only CPR. Hands-only CPR involves uninterrupted chest compressions of 100 to 120 per minute until an EMT arrives. You do not include rescue breathing with this technique.