Tyler's pulse would beat faintly and then vanish during the ambulance ride and in the local emergency room. He was flown to Allegheny General Hospital and admitted into a trauma unit. A tube down his windpipe aided his breathing. After four days in the hospital he pulled through. Tests a year later confirmed that Tyler had suffered no brain damage.
First aid is the best thing in the world.
The Houston study did not include children who had stopped breathing but still had pulses, which is a situation doctors see far more often. Children's hearts stop beating after their breathing stops, whereas in adults, the heart stops first. If caught early, a defibrillator can shock the adult heart into a normal beat, allowing the flow of oxygen to continue along with normal breathing. If a child has no pulse, he likely has not been breathing for some time, said Dr. Lee Beerman, a pediatric cardiologist at Children's Hospital. The study hasn't added anything that helps answer that question, Beerman said.