Originally Posted By: hikermor

I would certainly apply CPR in the back country again (I have done so twice already), but, realistically, you are most likely looking at a fatality in that sort of a situation. A near drowning may be an exception. Don't get your hopes up.


In Wilderness First Aid they advise CPR primarily for near drownings, lightning strikes, kids and infants - where the odds of success without other interventions all are better. I haven't provided CPR in a wilderness setting, but in a true wilderness setting it would be a tough and emotional decision to start CPR, and a real hard one to eventually stop.

Kids and infants are an important addition for compression+rescue breathing CPR. Also, it looks like the Red Cross just updated their official advice on compression only CPR, in the New England Journal of Medicine - so anyone who is interested can get it straight from the horse's mouth: http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/m...0089f0870aRCRD.