There is rarely a warning before sudden cardiac arrest. Heart attack patients usually remain conscious. Sudden cardiac arrest victims always lose consciousness. The prevalence of sudden cardiac arrest One of the leading causes of death among American adults, sudden cardiac arrest kills approximately 350,000 people a year, or approximately 1,000 people per day. Two out of every three deaths happen outside of the hospital.
Risk increases with age.
Although pre-existing heart disease is a common cause of cardiac arrest, many victims have never had any heart problems. Early defibrillation is the key to survival The only effective way to treat cardiac arrest is with a defibrillator, a medical device that delivers an electrical current, or shock, through the chest to the heart. This shock or countershock as it is sometimes called interrupts the random electrical pulses of ventricular fibrillation and gives the heart a chance to start beating again in a normal rhythm. The process is called defibrillation. If you ve watched ER, or any other TV hospital show, you ve probably seen a doctor or nurse successfully shocking a cardiac arrest victim back to life with a defibrillator.