Chest Compressions Recommended on Gasping Victims

I’m posting this because it’s a little different to the way I was taught CPR. We were told that if the patient is breathing, then the heart must be beating, and chest compressions shouldn’t be done. This article discusses patients who are gasping for air but otherwise unconscious. The Heart and Stroke Foundation recommends chest compressions with rescue breaths in these instances. According to another article in Science Daily, this is based on research from the University of Arizona, and a prior article citing several sources notes that there have been better outcomes with chest compressions only for  cardiac arrest, while rescue breaths are still helpful for respiratory arrest incidents like near drowning, drug overdose, or choking.

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