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If you think of CPR as a combination of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions, your first aid knowledge is outdated. In most situations, compression-only CPR is the right move. According to the American Heart Association, “Hands-Only CPR performed by a bystander has been shown to be as effective as CPR with breaths in the first few minutes of an out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest.” The exceptions are drowning victims and people who collapse with breathing problems, but the most common cause of a collapse and lack of heartbeat is cardiac arrest, and for that situation, compression-only CPR is the way. You don’t even have to know how to do it well: Laying someone on their back and pressing their chest to the beat of the Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive” is better than not doing anything, although, performing CPR you learned in a first aid class is better still.
