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Comment by Fezzik | Hacker News Reader

A better title: CPR is successful, just not as successful as people think it is.

Whoever thinks a 1/10 (or nearly 1/5!) shot at not dying otherwise is bad odds clearly doesn’t value their own life. I’ll take all my ribs being broken + being alive for even a week vs being dead and no broken ribs any day of the week. I’d also traumatize myself if I knew I was giving someone a 1/10 (or nearly 1/5!) shot at being alive and not dead. Absolutely none of the “downsides” they cite outweigh fucking dying.

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Clicking through to one of the references[0] in the article suggests that a little over 40% of people successfully resuscitated never wake up. So that drops us from 10% out-of-hospital / 17% in-hospital to 6%/10%.

That's still not nothing, but you also need to look at what percentage end up with severe enough brain damage that they're not really the same person anymore, and might have preferred death over that situation.

I value my life quite a lot, but I also value quality of life. I think there are quite a few physical and (especially) mental disabilities that I might not want to live with.

To your point about "ribs broken & alive for a week", I suspect that situation would be helpful for my loved ones to be able to see me and say goodbye, but not so helpful for myself.

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8548866/#Fig3

As someone who has performed CPR hmm, 500 times (paramedic), I would typically agree. Unwitnessed arrests have very low expectations. If you see me go down, then sure. But beyond that, I (and honestly, many) EMS professionals see themselves as effectively "DNR".

> I’ll take all my ribs being broken + being alive for even a week vs being dead and no broken ribs any day of the week.

If you'd ever spent time around a nursing home, you probably wouldn't say that. Quality of life matters, a lot. Not saying I have a DNR, but these are serious conversations to have before it's too late. I think what's really telling is how doctors and nurses treat themselves. They are almost never seeking maximum days alive no matter the physical and mental cost.

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