Survival Better for Cardiac Arrest at the Gym
Exercise boosts the risk of a heart-stopping problem, cardiac arrest. But if your heart stops in a place where people exercise, you’re more likely to survive than if you collapsed in another kind of public place. So says a new study presented at a conference. Researchers studied 960 cases of cardiac arrest. All of them took place in indoor public places. Of these cases, 150 occurred at places where people get exercise. These ranged from gyms to bowling alleys. People who had a cardiac arrest in an exercise facility were more likely to get CPR. About 77% received it, compared with 55% in other public places. About 16% were given a shock from an automated defibrillator machine. This is used to restart the heart. Only 7% got this treatment in other places. And more people survived a cardiac arrest in an exercise facility â 50% compared with 36% elsewhere.