Rating:

0.0 (0 votes)

PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona officials are training 911 dispatchers how to better recognize signs of cardiac arrest in an effort to boost the victim survival rate.

The Arizona Department of Health Services is rolling out new training for emergency-call dispatchers which includes how to instruct bystanders to begin a new style of CPR.

Officials say an average of 15 people a day statewide go into cardiac arrest. They say Arizona's survival rate is 32 percent.

The Department of Health Services is teaching dispatchers to ask fewer, more specific questions so resuscitation can start less than a minute after a call comes in.

The agency says bystanders will be told to start chest compressions only instead of the breathing into a patient's mouth.