not quite - if you stopped breathing, but your heart is working, you have an excellent chance of recovery if someone keeps air going in and out - that’s often t

not quite - if you stopped breathing, but your heart is working, you have an excellent chance of recovery if someone keeps air going in and out - that’s often the case for children and young people . If your heart stops after trauma, it’s mostly due to something cpr doesn’t address, like severe blood loss, once your heart stops from blood loss, usually your brain is irreversibly damaged in a very short time. The other key group that benefits is people with a “heart that’s too good to die” - meaning a strong heart in a shockable rhythm, in which case cpr may keep your brain alive long enough for someone with a defibrillator to fix the rhythm problem. that’s about 20% of all deaths: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6020177/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6020177/ So probably the optimal message is 1) learn how to do cpr and use it if you ever see someone collapse, but 2) if a doctor suggests that cpr would not be in your or your loved ones best interests, they’re usually right. I do agree with the author about asking people if they want a “natural death” instead of asking if they want “cpr” or “resuscitation”