PII S0736-4679(02)00433-X Original Contributions CARDIOPULMONARY RESUSCITATION USING THE CARDIO VENT DEVICE IN A RESUSCITATION MODEL Selim Suner, MD, MS,* Gregory D. Jay, MD, PhD,* Gary J. Kleinman, EMT-P, † Robert H. Woolard, MD,* Liudvikas Jagminas, MD,* and Bruce M. Becker, MD, MPH* *Department of Emergency Medicine, Rhode Island Hospital and Brown Medical School, Providence, Rhode Island, and † United States Public Health Service, Region 1, Boston, Massachusetts Reprint Address: Selim Suner, MD, MS, Department of Emergency Medicine, Rhode Island Hospital, Samuels Building Second Floor, 593 Eddy Street, Providence, RI 02903 e Abstract—To compare the “Bellows on Sternum Resus- citation” (BSR) device that permits simultaneous compres- sion and ventilation by one rescuer with two person car- diopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with bag-valve-mask (BVM) ventilation in a single blind crossover study per- formed in the laboratory setting. Tidal volume and com- pression depth were recorded continuously during 12-min CPR sessions with the BSR device and two person CPR. Six CPR instructors performed a total of 1,894 ventilations and 10,532 compressions in 3 separate 12-min sessions. Mean tidal volume (MTV) and compression rate (CR) with the BSR device differed significantly from CPR with the BVM group (1242 mL vs. 1065 mL, respectively, p  0.0018 and 63.2 compressions per minute (cpm) vs. 81.3 cpm, respec- tively, p  0.0076). Error in compression depth (ECD) rate of 9.78% was observed with the BSR device compared to 8.49% with BMV CPR (p  0.1815). Error rate was signif- icantly greater during the second half of CPR sessions for both BSR and BVM groups. It is concluded that one-person CPR with the BSR device is equivalent to two-person CPR with BVM in all measured parameters except for CR. Both groups exhibited greater error rate in CPR performance in the latter half of 12-min CPR sessions. © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. e Keywords—CPR; emergency medical services (EMS); sudden death; CPR adjunct; intubation INTRODUCTION Cardiac arrest is the cause of death in approximately 250,000 people in the United States each year (1). Most cases of cardiac arrest occur in the out-of-hospital setting where emergency cardiac care, if administered promptly, results in increased survival rates (1–7). Since the 1970s, out-of-hospital emergency medical services (EMS) systems have been developed in the United States and elsewhere to provide rapid and sophis- ticated on-scene cardiac care to, and assure safe and proper transportation of sudden cardiac death victims (2–5,8). Instituting and refining EMS systems for the purposes of improving meaningful survival from out-of- hospital sudden death is costly (9). In many EMS sys- tems, multiple units must be dispatched to cardiac arrest scenes to provide adequate personnel to perform cardio- pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and administer Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS). This leaves some local EMS systems short-handed to respond to other emergen- cies. At times additional response is from fire apparatus with firefighter-emergency medical technician (EMT) None of the authors have any financial relationship with the manufacturers or distributors of the device used in this study. Original Contributions is coordinated by John Marx, MD, of Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, North Carolina RECEIVED: 15 March 2001; FINAL SUBMISSION RECEIVED: 15 August 2001; ACCEPTED: 31 August 2002 The Journal of Emergency Medicine, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 335–340, 2002 Copyright © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0736-4679/02 $–see front matter 335