Life is a very precious gift of god to us. At times accidents like fire, road-traffic-accidents, electrocution, drowning, blasts lead to unnatural deaths. Or people at home or at working place may fall victim of heart attack, brain stroke, poisonous gases etc. A child may get choked by food or by some playing object and may endanger his life. Just think of those bereaved family members who have lost their father, mother, brother, sister, son or daughter in such a manner. Often these victim is alive at the site of accident but on reaching hospital, doctor says, “Sorry, you are too late. Patient has already passed away.” Had any person present at the site of accident or those transporting the patient would have knowledge of CPR, the life could have been saved. For this very simple reason every responsible citizen must have knowledge of CPR. “CPR” stands for cardio pulmonary resuscitation “the Mother of all first aid techniques”.

This is a very simple technique and can be learnt with a little training. It does not require any equipment. For this we just require the presence of mind in such circumstances and ‘will’ to help someone.

Cardio pulmonary resuscitation is a technique to sustain life in absence of spontaneous heartbeat and breathing. We all know that to sustain life we all breathe to take oxygen in and carbondioxide out. For taking air up to lungs, air passage i.e. nose, throat and windpipe must be clear. Our lungs must function properly to exchange gases to clean blood and heart must pump blood to body parts. These factors together are sufficient to keep someone alive and this is the objective of CPR. Our brain cannot survive without oxygen for more than 3-4 minutes and hence to be effective this CPR exercise must be started with in this time limit.
Learning CPR is very simple and also easy to execute when needed. For this we need to keep in mind first three English alphabets i.e. A (airway), B (breathing), and C (circulation) – Airway must be clear & patent and breathing & circulation must continue to keep a person alive.
Apart from this there are few accidental emergencies and calamities about which we should know some basic facts.

Earlier the steps of resuscitation were taught as ABC- A(airway), B(breathing), C(circulation). Now the new guidelines as per AHA 2010 (American Heart Association) are as CAB- C(circulation), A(airway) and B(breathing).

In basic trauma management people are taught how to handle common medical emergencies without the help of any doctor or equipment.

CPR(BLS) cannot be learned by lectures or video presentation. It has to be learned on mannequins by trained instructors.