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What is CPR?

CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) is an emergency procedure to get your heart beating again when it unexpectedly stops (cardiac arrest). When your heart stops beating it stops pumping blood around your body - starving your brain of oxygen. The longer your brain goes without oxygen, the greater the chance of brain damage and death. CPR can keep your blood pumping until professional medical help arrives.

How to perform CPR

© Graphic by Ben Hudson

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Why is learning CPR important?

Without CPR, your chance of dying dramatically increases after cardiac arrest. By learning CPR, you can become a hero and save someone else's life. Minutes spent learning CPR can mean a lifetime saved. The British Heart Foundation's RevivR campaign puts this power in your hands. Taking its free 15-minute online CPR course means you could be ready to act in an emergency.

Andy's story

Andy Bleasby of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, performed life-saving CPR in a familiar yet seemingly unlikely place.

"I was actually in the pub, about to watch a local rugby game," says the father of two. "I was just chatting with my in-laws when my friend told me someone had collapsed around the corner. I thought, "That doesn't sound good", so I got up to see what was happening.

Due to his role as an operating department practitioner (ODP), Andy undergoes yearly CPR training. So when he saw a man lying unconscious and unresponsive on the floor of the pub, his instinctive response was to step in and perform immediate CPR.

"My friend and I took turns performing CPR until the ambulance team arrived. The person survived and is now living a normal life. I even went to his 65th birthday party."

Andy emphasises that knowing how to do CPR was vital in helping to save this person's life.

"There are many organisations running free CPR training and basic life support courses," he says. "So if you have the opportunity to go on one - do it. You never know when it’s going to come in useful. Cardiac arrest can happen to anyone - it may be a stranger in a pub, or it could be a family member in your own house."

"Anything you can do is a bonus," says Andy. "Even if you haven't had CPR training - or only watched it on TV - if you can attempt to do what you can do, that's better than nothing. It gives that person a greater chance of survival."

For more inspiring stories about the life-saving power of CPR, tune in to Emma's story.