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© St. Petersburg Times, published April 29, 2002
Men over age 45 and women over 55 are at greatest risk for cardiac arrest. The risk is also higher among people who smoke, are overweight or have diabetes.
Sudden cardiac arrest claims about 250,000 American lives every year -- about 700 per day.
In Florida, more than 12,300 people have a heart attack each year.
More than 95 percent of people who suffer cardiac arrest die.
Brain death starts to occur 4 to 6 minutes after cardiac arrest.
For every minute a cardiac-arrest victim is not defibrillated, the odds of survival decline as much as 10 percent. After as little as 10 minutes, very few resuscitation attempts are successful.
If defibrillation begins in 1 to 3 minutes, there is a 70-80 percent chance of survival.
About 80 percent of people who survive sudden cardiac arrest are alive one year later, and nearly 60 percent are alive five years later.
Source: American Heart Association