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In fact, an AED does not restart the heart. It's used in the case of cardiac arrhythmia. CPR is the proper protocol for a flat-lined patient.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_external_defibrillato...

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Except you cannot know if the patient is flat-lined or has arrhythmia. The AED performs an ECG and delivers a shock only if appropriate; if you have one available, you should always use it (which does not exclude CPR in the meantime).

Hence the 'might'. An AED may be able to restart a heart in ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia (I suppose we can quibble over what 'restart' means).

CPR alone never restarts a heart (ok... not 'never', but it's uncommon enough (in adults) that it's not worth fighting over).

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