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My understanding is that if hypothermia isn't involved, anyone who can't be resusitated by paramedics but can be resuscitated at the hospital are very unlikely to have any quality of life afterwards.

This is based on some "real talk" by a YouTube doctor so I'd love anyone more knowledgeable than me to chime in.

I follow reported health news.

My understanding is that if you have a transient event (hypothermia, drowning, electrical shock, internal ticking problem), and you're otherwise healthy, CPR is helpful.

But if you have a chronic heart condition, CPR is not going to fix that. Additionally, if you're old, several of your ribs will be cracked, possibly a lung will be punctured, and then during surgery they will crack the rest. So it's unlikely you'll ever walk out of the hospital.

Meth overdose is a weird one. According to one video I saw on Youtube, you need CPR every 5 minutes or so as they take you to the hospital after they inject you with an antidote.

So when revived meth patients try walking away from EMS, the ambulance just follows them until they fall over again.

Anyway, I'm just trying to illustrate how CPR is a complex thing, and you should do your own research to understand it better.

It is unusual to transport a patient to a hospital if return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) is not achieved in on-scene.

E.g, in San Francisco's protocols, if a patient doesn't regain a pulse after 30 minutes of CPR, the patient is declared dead and not transported to the hospital (unless the base hospital requests transport, which is rare). See policy 4050-II-2 (Medical Indications).

https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/EMS/Policy-Protocol-Manuals/...

From that perspective, I'm surprised that the old policy existed. With respect to getting a pulse back, there's not much that can be done in a hospital that can't be done in the field. (Of course, after a pulse returns, then the hospital can do lots of things that can't be done on-scene).