Regardless of how one expresses the statistics, anyone embarking on CPR should do so with the realization that it most likely isn’t going to be successful. Otherwise, that person might be racked with guilt that they somehow “failed.” This is not any different from the process of learning a new skill. I hope no one starts with an expectation of immediate success with no failures.
From my perspective, every instance of resuscitation of someone that goes on to live is a miracle.

Okay, so ten out of a hundred may have sounded illogical, but if you state that something has a ten percent chance of working, some people will see that statistic and abandon the project before it begins, but saying that you have the chance of saving the lives of ten people out of a hundred who would have died otherwise frames it in a way that people would find it to be a public policy worth promoting, along the lines of organ donation, using a bike helmet, etc.

Amy T., I’m not sure I understand your point. Isn’t “ten people out of a hundred” 10%?

In any case, I’m not trying to assert that a particular number is correct, just taht the proportion of the time that CPR is successful is lower than the proportion we see on TV.

I’m merely suggesting that even with today’s significantly better techniques, the chance of someone being revived from circumstances like those of Lorenzo Snow aren’t high — not the 70% that we see on TV shows.

Please tell me if my assumption is wrong.

AND, in case anyone misunderstands, I’m NOT suggesting that CPR shouldn’t be tried!

The chances of any of the people in this story having heard of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is somewhere between negligible and zero.

Kent, I just looked at your link, and the information about CPR in there is entirely about end-of-life care, when the patient is terminal and CPR is being listed as part of a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order. Their use or misuse of the ten percent statistic (probably from this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21796098) is unfortunate if applied to the general population, especially if you consider cases like Lorenzo Snow’s drowning. When bystanders use CPR in out-of-hospital cardiac events, they are able to save up to ten people out of a hundred who would otherwise die.

Everyone should know CPR, and it should be used as necessary. The new CPR guidelines no longer include doing concurrent mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, so that removes the “ick” factor for many people.

Although this video is a little too short — you don’t want to do CPR on someone who has fainted or is having a seizure — it does show how to do teen and adult CPR; heels of both hands together on breastbone; press hard at about 100 beats per minute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgmledxFe8

Child CPR is slightly different, and anyone who spends much time with children should know how to do it as well.

Thanks to all for the comments, and especially TOC for his incredible find regarding Alma Smith.

BUT, my research was colored by a show on Radiolab (http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2013/jan/15/bitter-end/) that reported that CPR works so infrequently (less than 10% of cases) that doctors generally don’t want it used on them personally!!

I don’t know if MMV’s success rate is much better than CPR or not, but I suspect it isn’t too different — CPR is kind of a successor to MMV, after all.

Our perceptions of reviving someone are colored by television, where CPR works about 70% of the time. he reality is that reviving someone like this is usually not successful.