Could one small change to CPR have saved Shane Warne's life?

Even after all this time, it still seems so unreal that Shane Warne is no longer with us. His was a sad and tragic death - a cricketing legend gone suddenly from an apparent heart attack, that shook the whole country.

The fact that his friends tried bravely and valiantly to give him CPR for 20 minutes in an attempt to save his life, conjure up a very sad picture of his final fate.

It's very sad to think that if only someone had discovered him earlier and sooner after his heart attack, the CPR could have saved him.

First aid experts around the world all agree that the quicker you can apply CPR to someone the better the chance of them making a full recovery.

Obviously then, the longer it takes for a person to be discovered after their heart attack, the less likely CPR, or anything for that matter, will save them.

How long can you last after a heart attack?

The most recent research shows that for every minute after a heart attack that resuscitation isn’t started the chance of recovery falls by 10%.

So after 1 minute your chance of recovery falls to 90%, 2 minutes - 80%, 3 minutes - 70%, and so on!

But think about this. This research means that even 5 minutes after a heart attack, there is still a 50% chance of recovery by using CPR.

If you can also supplement the CPR with using an AED (defibrillator), then the chance of recovery increases dramatically.

Remember that the purpose of CPR is NOT to restart your heart after a heart attack. Its actual purpose is to delay tissue and organ death by restoring a partial flow of oxygenated blood to the brain and heart. That’s why you have to keep doing it, constantly, for up to 20 minutes in order to ensure that the blood and oxygen, keep pumping through the body. (People generally don’t realise how exhausting CPR is until they actually have to do it in real life or even in first aid training.)

The main job of CPR is to keep the person from deteriorating too quickly so that when the ambulance crew arrive to take over or someone can bring an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) they can revive the person and restart their heart.

CPR keeps vital organs like the brain alive long enough that the person won’t suffer permanent brain damage.

How Shane Warne could have been saved

It’s very sad to think that if Shane’s friends had discovered him possibly just 20 or 30 minutes earlier and applied CPR quicker, that he could still be with us. We’ll never know exactly how long after his heart attack he was found.

Perhaps the only positive thing to come out of this awful tragedy, is that more people have become aware of their heart health and started taking positive steps to stay fit and healthy.

Also if Shane Warne's death makes more people think they should do some CPR or other first aid training then that would be good for everyone. The more people who are trained in CPR the more people who can help when tragedy strikes.

Knowing the kind of person that Shane Warne was, it is highly likely that he would approve of more people getting trained in CPR to help save other people’s lives even if his couldn't be save.

If you'd like to learn CPR or First Aid, we have public classes available several times a week. It's not expensive and you will learn life-saving skills that could help you save a mate one day. These days you can even do most of training online at home, at a time that suits you and only come to our training centre for a short final assessment. Find out more at https://www.resultsfirstaid.com/courses