How Can I Do CPR? (2024)

How should I prepare for CPR?

Before starting CPR, follow these steps:

1. If you see someone collapse, loudly ask the person if they’re OK.
2. If they don’t respond, call 911 and ensure a safe scene. The 911 dispatcher can guide you through the steps to take until paramedics arrive.
3. Ask someone nearby to get an automated external defibrillator (AED).
4. Tilt the person’s head back while they’re lying on their back.
5. Lean in close to the person’s face and listen for 10 seconds to see if you hear them breathing.
6. Check to see if the person is breathing or to see if their chest is going up and down.
7. Check for a pulse by feeling the side of their neck.
8. Perform CPR if you don’t feel a pulse.

How to do CPR

Follow these CPR instructions to help someone older than an infant:

1. If the person isn’t breathing, put one of your hands over the other and place them in the middle of the person’s chest (right under their nipples). If you’re helping a child up to age 8, use one hand and place it right above the bottom of their breastbone.
2. Putting the force of your body weight behind it, push your hands down hard in the middle of the person’s chest. Use the heel of your hand, or the part just before your wrist. Keep your arms straight.
3. Keep pushing on the person’s chest (chest compressions) 100 to 120 times per minute, pushing down 2 inches (about the height or short side of a credit card) each time. Make sure you allow their chest to come all the way back up between compressions.
4. People who have CPR training can pause compressions to give the person two mouth-to-mouth rescue breaths for every 30 compressions (about 20 seconds or so).
5. Keep doing chest compressions and giving rescue breaths in a cycle until the person revives or more help arrives.

Perform the rescue breath as follows:

1. Pinch the person’s nose closed while tilting their head back a little and their chin up.
2. Close your mouth over theirs and blow a normal-sized breath into it so their chest goes up. If the person’s chest doesn’t come up, check to see if there’s something in their mouth.
3. Give a total of two breaths and go back to doing compressions.

While you’re doing CPR, someone should be bringing an AED to use to help with resuscitating the person.

CPR for an infant

If you’re doing CPR on an infant by yourself, put one hand on their forehead to keep their head slightly back to provide proper rescue breaths. Use two fingers of your other hand to do compressions that go a third or half the depth of their chest. The number of compressions and breaths is the same as for adults.

If you’re a two-person rescue team, while one person provides rescue breaths, the other person should use a two-hand method. Place both thumbs in the center of the chest (below the nipple) with the remaining fingers wrapped around the sides of the infant. Deliver compressions with the two thumbs.

Hands-only CPR

You can do CPR even if you don’t have training in how to perform CPR. If a teen or adult is in cardiac arrest, call 911 and do chest compressions until emergency help arrives. This is called “hands-only CPR.” By distributing oxygen currently in the person’s body, it can help someone in cardiac arrest until someone with CPR training arrives.

What’s the rate of CPR compressions?

You need to do CPR compressions 100 to 120 times per minute.

It can be easier to remember the CPR compression rate if you follow the beat of these songs:

• “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees.
• “Walk the Line” by Johnny Cash.
• “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé and Jay-Z.
• “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira.

How long does this procedure take?

You should keep doing CPR until the person revives or a paramedic arrives. If you get tired, another bystander can switch places with you.

What happens after CPR?

After first responders take over caring for the person receiving CPR, they’ll get them to a hospital as soon as possible. If the person survives, healthcare providers will look to see if there’s any organ damage from a lack of oxygen. They’ll also determine the cause of cardiac arrest and provide whatever treatment the person needs. Many people who survive cardiac arrest stay in a coma, but about half wake-up.