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Authors: Sanjay Gupta
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didn’t
count people as survivors unless they walked out of the hospital without significant brain damage. And yet, among victims
of an illness that typically kills more than 95 percent of those it strikes, one in four was walking around almost as if nothing
had happened. 20
As we came to learn, this phenomenon wasn’t isolated to small towns in Wisconsin and Arizona. In 2007, researchers in Japan
unveiled the results of a massive study on bystander interventions. They examined cases where a person collapsed of sudden
cardiac arrest outside of a hospital but in view of a bystander: of those receiving no help before an ambulance arrived, only
3 percent survived; of those who got traditional mouth-to-mouth resuscitation along with chest compressions, the survival
rate jumped to 11 percent; but of those who got chest compressions only, it was even better—19 percent. 21
Kellum says that when he first started telling people about his results, he was met with stark disbelief. At one point, he
flew to Kansas City to give a presentation about CCR to a medical group. Afterward, Kellum says, “The top three people went
out to dinner and said, ‘That guy is certifiably insane.’ And then they began to look at the data, and you just can’t argue
with it.”
By tripling the survival rate from cardiac arrest in Arizona, Bobrow estimates his paramedics saved several hundred lives
during the three-year study period alone. A medicine that did the same would be a best seller. “It’s a phenomenal thing,”
Bobrow told me. “Here you have a situation where not one nickel has been spent teaching this, and it turns out to be just
as good—or in my view, better—than something on which millions of dollars and man-hours have been spent.”
In the world of medicine, paradoxically, it can be much harder to convince people to try a simple and inexpensive solution
than one that is complex and unproven. Here’s my own theory: There are thousands of medical journals churning out new articles
every week. Sorting the useful from the useless is a herculean task. Meanwhile, there are approximately 800,000 physicians
in the United States, most of whom aren’t leafing through medical journals in their spare time. In that sea of information,
a new idea or therapy, even one that’s a proven success, has to struggle to capture attention. A company with a new wonder
drug is often willing to spend millions or even billions of dollars to tell physicians about its benefits. On the other hand,
something as basic as a new kind of CPR—well, who’s got a stake in that? 22
O N A FEBRUARY day in 2008, in the mellow afternoon glow of the Arizona winter, Mike Mertz grinned from ear to ear as he walked into Glendale
Fire Station 154. He wanted to shake hands with Ruben Florez and the rest of the crew that saved his life. Bentley Bobrow
was there, too, shaking his head: “He truly was dead, and here he is, fine.”
In medicine, there’s often a choice between pursuing the known course, the comfortable course, the well-worn path—and trying
something new. Innovation might save lives and yet at the same time cost lives. Medicine in general is geared toward caution.
First, do no harm. And yet, our greatest learning comes
not
from never failing, but in learning from our mistakes, rising up every time we do fail.
The smiles lasted a few minutes, until a call came in and Florez and the engine had to pull out. Afterward, in the quiet outside
the station, Mertz wondered aloud at the other path he might have taken. When he came in to the hospital, doctors had told
his daughter that he most likely wasn’t going to make it. “I was completely out. Gone,” he said. “If that UPS guy hadn’t come
around the corner, I wouldn’t be here today. It was that close.”
Even more than that, if it weren’t for the persistent efforts of brave physicians like Gordon Ewy, Mike Mertz probably wouldn’t
be
count people as survivors unless they walked out of the hospital without significant brain damage. And yet, among victims
of an illness that typically kills more than 95 percent of those it strikes, one in four was walking around almost as if nothing
had happened. 20
As we came to learn, this phenomenon wasn’t isolated to small towns in Wisconsin and Arizona. In 2007, researchers in Japan
unveiled the results of a massive study on bystander interventions. They examined cases where a person collapsed of sudden
cardiac arrest outside of a hospital but in view of a bystander: of those receiving no help before an ambulance arrived, only
3 percent survived; of those who got traditional mouth-to-mouth resuscitation along with chest compressions, the survival
rate jumped to 11 percent; but of those who got chest compressions only, it was even better—19 percent. 21
Kellum says that when he first started telling people about his results, he was met with stark disbelief. At one point, he
flew to Kansas City to give a presentation about CCR to a medical group. Afterward, Kellum says, “The top three people went
out to dinner and said, ‘That guy is certifiably insane.’ And then they began to look at the data, and you just can’t argue
with it.”
By tripling the survival rate from cardiac arrest in Arizona, Bobrow estimates his paramedics saved several hundred lives
during the three-year study period alone. A medicine that did the same would be a best seller. “It’s a phenomenal thing,”
Bobrow told me. “Here you have a situation where not one nickel has been spent teaching this, and it turns out to be just
as good—or in my view, better—than something on which millions of dollars and man-hours have been spent.”
In the world of medicine, paradoxically, it can be much harder to convince people to try a simple and inexpensive solution
than one that is complex and unproven. Here’s my own theory: There are thousands of medical journals churning out new articles
every week. Sorting the useful from the useless is a herculean task. Meanwhile, there are approximately 800,000 physicians
in the United States, most of whom aren’t leafing through medical journals in their spare time. In that sea of information,
a new idea or therapy, even one that’s a proven success, has to struggle to capture attention. A company with a new wonder
drug is often willing to spend millions or even billions of dollars to tell physicians about its benefits. On the other hand,
something as basic as a new kind of CPR—well, who’s got a stake in that? 22
O N A FEBRUARY day in 2008, in the mellow afternoon glow of the Arizona winter, Mike Mertz grinned from ear to ear as he walked into Glendale
Fire Station 154. He wanted to shake hands with Ruben Florez and the rest of the crew that saved his life. Bentley Bobrow
was there, too, shaking his head: “He truly was dead, and here he is, fine.”
In medicine, there’s often a choice between pursuing the known course, the comfortable course, the well-worn path—and trying
something new. Innovation might save lives and yet at the same time cost lives. Medicine in general is geared toward caution.
First, do no harm. And yet, our greatest learning comes
not
from never failing, but in learning from our mistakes, rising up every time we do fail.
The smiles lasted a few minutes, until a call came in and Florez and the engine had to pull out. Afterward, in the quiet outside
the station, Mertz wondered aloud at the other path he might have taken. When he came in to the hospital, doctors had told
his daughter that he most likely wasn’t going to make it. “I was completely out. Gone,” he said. “If that UPS guy hadn’t come
around the corner, I wouldn’t be here today. It was that close.”
Even more than that, if it weren’t for the persistent efforts of brave physicians like Gordon Ewy, Mike Mertz probably wouldn’t
be
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