A recent study found that 30% of cardiac arrest victims were placed inappropriately in the recovery position!

The main reason for this is that the rescuer did not recognise “agonal breathing”. Agonal breathing happens in up to 40% of sudden cardiac arrests, but it seems that we are not getting this message across to first aiders.

The guidelines 2005 were changed to try and address this – if the patient is unresponsive and “not breathing normally” a rescuer should start CPR. Agonal breathing is “one (often noisy) deep gasp every 10 to 15 seconds". It’s easy to see why a first aider would not give CPR if they had not been trained to recognise it.

Frustratingly, if a casualty has agonal breathing, they have a higher chance of survival, but not if the first aider doesn’t start CPR!

Here are some helpful videos on agonal breathing:

This a man acting agonal breathing. We don't think that the anoxic convulsion is very accurate (it's more like an epilepsy seizure) and the agonal brathing is perhaps a bit fast (it's usually one breath every 10 to 15 seconds). Also, agonal breathing can be quite loud, like a groaning sound, but not always:

This is a real clip of a young man who drowns, you can clearly see his agonal breathing attempts. An excellent clip to show to students:

Here is a news article that emphasises the need for teaching about agonal breathing:

Swimmer 'could have survived' at Leicester pool:

The life of a talented teenage swimmer could have been saved if first aid at the pool where she died had been continued, a coroner has found.

Sophie Konderak, 16, got into difficulty while training with Leicester's elite performance team at Braunstone Leisure Centre in September.

An inquest heard she died from an undiagnosed heart condition.

But coroner Catherine Mason said she could have survived if a defibrillator had been used.

Sophie has been described as a "water baby", who had ambitions to compete in the Olympic swimming team as well as to become a doctor.

The inquest in Leicester heard a pool lifeguard was following training guidelines when she stopped carrying out chest compressions after Sophie started breathing again.

But experts said they were in fact her dying breaths.

Read the full article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/8535486.stm