We are an ASHI Training Center.

Heart Start Corp. employs Health Care professionals who work in the field as emergency Medical providers. Our staff consists of Fire Fighters, Nurses, Paramedics, EMTs and Physicians Aids. Our classes are different from many as we can offer real world experiences that no text book or video can.

Heart Start instructors pride themselves on the low key educational interaction we achieve with each class to make the material easy to understand and recall. In the unfortunate event that these skills are necessary, they may mean the difference between Life and Death. Our goal is to create a relaxed environment where learning is as easy as A-B-C-D.

People often have fears associated with utilizing these skills. Most of these fears can be removed if a person has a better understanding of what is actually happening. Although the subject is serious in nature we do our best to interject humor and a relaxed format. We feel this is where people learn the best.

CPR - Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

The medical term for the condition in which a person’s heart has stopped is cardiac arrest (also referred to as cardiorespiratory arrest). CPR is used on patients in cardiac arrest in order to oxygenate the blood and maintain a cardiac output to keep vital organs alive.

Blood circulation and oxygenation are absolute requirements in transporting oxygen to the tissues. The brain may sustain damage after blood flow has been stopped for about four minutes and irreversible damage after about seven minutes. If blood flow ceases for 1 or 2 hours, the cells of the body die unless they get an adequately gradual bloodflow, (provided by cooling and gradual warming, rarely, in nature [such as in a cold stream of water] or by an advanced medical team). Because of that CPR is generally only effective if performed within 7 minutes of the stoppage of blood flow. The heart also rapidly loses the ability to maintain a normal rhythm. Low body temperatures as sometimes seen in drowning prolong the time the brain survives. Following cardiac arrest, effective CPR enables enough oxygen to reach the brain to delay brain death, and allows the heart to remain responsive to defibrillation attempts.

If the patient still has a pulse, but is not breathing, this is called respiratory arrest and artificial respiration is more appropriate. However, since people often have difficulty detecting a pulse, CPR may be used in both cases, especially when taught as first aid (see below).

Various studies suggest that in out-of-home cardiac arrest, bystanders, lay persons or family members attempt CPR in between 14% and 45% of the time, with a median of 32%.

This indicates that around 1/3 of out-of-home arrests have a CPR attempt made on them. However, the effectiveness of this CPR is variable, and the studies suggest only around half of bystander CPR is performed correctly.