So if a heart stops you can massage, pump or shock it back to life, and surgeons even stop a heart on purpose before firing it back up, so why can’t they do that 100 percent of the time? What is it that makes a heart stop and never come back? If the brain is working then surely the heart should always come back?
In: Biology
# So many wrong answers, some clarifications:
1. **Heart massage will NOT restart a heart ever!** All its does is keep enough blood flowing so your brain survives until hopefully someone comes around and fixes the actual issue. Thats why the first step of CPR is to call for an ambulance. If you dont do that all the pumping is useless to begin with. (You will actually fail your CPR-class if you dont specificly state that you call for help before you start pumping)
2. **A stopped heart (flatline) is NOT a shockable rythm.** The sole puropse of a defibrillator IS to stop the heart! It can happen that the heart gets scrambled up in its rythm and starts to just twitching around and not pumping anything effectivly. In THIS case you use the defibrillator to stop the heart completely so it can start back up properly on its own.
**And this is your answer:** It doesn’t work 100% of the time, because a defibrillator only fixes certain issues and also requires the heart to start back up on its own. If it can’t, your body will die soon, since heart massage can only keep your body alive for so long.
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