Respiratory Arrest (HB)

If someone is not breathing at all (for any reason) but still has a pulse, we refer to it as “respiratory arrest,” and we treat that with rescue breathing. If they have no breathing AND no pulse, then it is called “cardiac arrest,” which is treated by doing CPR.

For a patient in respiratory arrest, we must immediately control the airway and begin rescue breathing. The body has a small reserve of oxygen that it carries in the blood—100% of the oxygenated blood is not used on every trip through the circulatory system. As long as the heart is pumping, it moves the blood to where it needs to be until that little bit of reserve is used up. Once the reserve is consumed, and the brain and heart no longer get the perfusion they need, they will start to fail. In general, we have a four to six minute supply of oxygen in the blood before this happens.

If we find a patient in respiratory arrest, start rescue breathing, which will help oxygenate the blood. It is a lot harder to fix the patient once the heart stops, so you should rescue breathing as soon as possible.

Rescue breathing is simple: 1 breath every 5 to 6 seconds with good chest rise.