CENTRAL TEXAS — In the United States, cardiac arrest is the number one cause of death and doctors said many times that deadly attack can be the first and only sign of heart disease.
But with 350,000 of those attacks happening outside of the hospital, health care professionals said it’s important for bystanders to step in.
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"That is keeping them alive and buying them time until first responders and EMS can arrive,” said Jim Persons, with Williamson County EMS.
Last year through their outreach programs, the agency taught about 2,000 people how to do the chest compressions.
"You are taking over the work of the heart,” said Persons.
Persons said those 100 to 120 beats per minute are lifesaving.
With the Austin American Heart Association saying Seventy percent of cardiac arrests happen at home, Persons wants to make sure everyone family, friend or stranger can jump in to help.
"Ninety percent of the time when someone suffers and out of hospital heart attack it's fatal,” said Cardiologist Vivek Goswami with Austin Heart who practices at Heart Hospital of Austin.
He said bystander CPR can triple a person's chance of survival.
"Just a little bit of extra oxygen to the brain and those critical minutes before EMS arrives can make the difference between life and death,” said Goswami.
But in 2017, the CPR bystander rate in Austin was 33 percent. In Williamson County it was 39 percent. The American Heart Association said the national rate in 2016 was 46 percent.
Goswami said often times people just freeze.
"They think they may hurt the individual or they’re a little timid,” said Goswami.
But he said it’s important for people to know the skill, since those moments are critical.
"The person that witnesses the event they're the one that is going to make a difference,” said Persons.
That difference may be life versus death.