Hands-Only CPR: How the power of song can help save a person’s life

The Ad Council and American Heart Association recently launched a national multimedia campaign that encourages bystanders to use Hands-Only CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) when an adult collapses and is unresponsive.

Hands-Only CPR, or CPR without mouth-to-mouth breathing, is a two-step technique that involves calling 9-1-1 and pushing hard and fast in the center of the chest until professional help arrives.

Forty-four percent of adults say they would not perform CPR because they’re not confident in their ability, according to a national American Heart Association survey conducted in 2008. Consumer research also shows that people often hesitate because they’re not comfortable with giving mouth-to-mouth CPR.

And now you don’t have to.

And it is simple to perform.  This video from the Today Show demonstrates how to perform hands-only CPR.

Please take a look.

You may save a life for the price of five minutes of your time.

A good deal, I think.

If the video doesn’t work, check it out here.

At the beginning of the video, I thought, how am I going to remember how to do this if I need to use technique in an emergency?

And then they played the song Staying Alive.

Ah-ha.

Brilliant.

Here’s to staying alive.