>Cardiac arrest is not 50/50, it's more like 70/30. You're much more likely to have to perform CPR on a man (unless you're primarily surrounded by very old people, I suppose).
From: Sex‐Based Disparities in Incidence, Treatment, and Outcomes of Cardiac Arrest in the United States, 2003–2012
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4937290/
"Of the 1,436,052 discharge records analyzed from patients who were transported alive to the emergency department of acute‐care hospitals with a cardiac arrest between 2003 and 2012, 45.4% (n=651 745) were females."
>Women are more likely to not receive proper CPR though, likely because bystanders are afraid to be accused of improper conduct and/or afraid to hurt them (as women are generally significantly older than men when they get their first cardiac arrest).
This is an EXCELLENT observation and correct, based on my experience running countless Code Blues over 38 years of practice as an in-hospital (neurosurgical) anesthesiologist.
Women's bone density is less than that of men's, so much so that just leaning on the chest of an elderly woman can fracture ribs.
Successful CPR (rare, but it does happen) in such cases almost always results in numerous rib fractures.
>Also, in general: before you start CPR, remove their clothes from the upper body. There's a chance they may suffer from ventricular fibrillation which can be solved with an AED. If you start CPR without having removed their (upper body) clothes, you can't use the AED without a long pause - at which point you've lost a lot of time.
I demur. The time wasted removing upper body clothing before beginning CPR lessens the chance of successful CPR (discharge from the hospital without brain damage being the criterion).
Indeed, they may be in vfib, but it is unlikely, in an out-of-hospital setting, that an AED will be brought to the scene before the person dies.