Cover

How to Save a Life

Eva Carter

Dedication page

This book is dedicated to first responders everywhere, who go towards danger to help the people who need them most

A Guide to the Chain of Survival: Part 1

This is how to save a life.

Imagine a room with a hundred people in it: a packed pub, maybe, full of people you know and care about.

One by one, without warning, your friends and family members begin falling to the floor. Eventually, only six or seven are left standing.

That’s the truth about cardiac arrest. Without immediate help, fewer than one in ten people will survive.

It can happen to anyone, anywhere.

And the moment it does, the clock starts ticking. The heart no longer pumps blood to the brain and the body, starving them of oxygen.

But with the help of someone like you, many more patients could survive. Imagine thirty of those people you care about standing back up and dusting themselves down, alive and ready for their second chance.

It’s ordinary people like us, not doctors, who are most likely to be there when the worst happens. At work, in the park, at home, even in the pub.

A person’s chance of recovery depends on what happens next – starting with you.

This is the Chain of Survival. And the first link in the chain is both the easiest and the most important.

It’s simply recognizing that someone has had a cardiac arrest – and calling for help.

1: If you see someone unresponsive and not breathing normally, call 999. Every single second counts.

Chapter 1: Kerry

31 December 1999

Six minutes. I have six minutes left to be kissed.

Three hundred and sixty seconds and counting, if I don’t want to end another year – let’s face it, an entire millennium – as the only seventeen-year-old in Brighton who has never snogged another human being.

Most of the girls in the sixth form have gone all the way. You can tell from the way they move: dancing wildly on the shingle, wearing heels that keep sinking into the gaps between the pebbles, unsteady and sexy and—

‘Which do you think will implode first, the National Grid or air traffic control?’ Tim says, passing me the can of Diamond White.

When I raise it to my lips, all that’s left is apple froth. I look up at the sky. ‘You probably shouldn’t be quite so excited about the idea of Armageddon.’

He grins. ‘I can’t help it if I crave a bit of drama sometimes.’

You and me both.

‘We don’t have long to wait to get our share of it.’