St. John Ambulance - Kitchener-Waterloo

October 18, 2010 (Ottawa) — St. John Ambulance supports the recently released CPR guidelines particularly as they relate to compression only CPR.  Recent studies illustrate the benefit of compression-only or hands-only CPR. This technique involves pressing on the chest of a person in cardiac arrest without providing mouth-to-mouth ventilations. This technique has been shown to be of benefit in certain situations e.g. a witnessed cardiac arrest in an out-of-hospital situation, particularly where the first aider is untrained or is reluctant to provide rescue breathing.

The complete CPR technique, which includes both chest compressions and rescue breathing, is recommended for infants, children and in cases where the cardiac arrest was not witnessed or was due to special circumstances such as near-drowning. For those individuals confronted with a cardiac arrest who have not been trained, are unsure of their ability to perform CPR or are reluctant to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, compression-only CPR is recommended.

St. John Ambulance will continue to teach all CPR components in our classes including an emphasis on the early use of a defibrillator.  It is important to note that if you have had CPR training, the skills you were taught are still okay to use and by immediately beginning CPR you can make a valuable difference in helping to save a life.