During CPR, avoid bending elbows, leaning on the chest, pausing compressions, going too slow/fast, incorrect hand placement, delaying calling for help, and giving breaths if untrained; instead, push hard and fast in the center of the chest (100-120/min), allowing full chest recoil, and ensure professional help is on the way.
Here are the 6 most common mistakes to avoid when performing CPR.
CPR Do's And Don'ts
According to expert CPR best practice recommendations, you should stop CPR only when one of the following occurs:
What is the golden rule of CPR? The golden rule of CPR is to act fast. Call 999, start chest compressions in the centre of the chest, and keep going steadily until help arrives or a defibrillator is ready to use.
The 5 P's of circulation assessment includes pain, pallor, pulse, paresthesia, and paralysis.
The 3 R's in CPR stand for Recognize, Respond, and Resuscitate. These three steps are crucial in saving a life during a cardiac emergency. When a person experiences cardiac arrest, every second counts, and understanding these three essential steps ensures that bystanders can take quick and effective action.
CPR can be a life-saving procedure, yet knowing when to pause and assess the situation is equally important. Remember, if the person is conscious, breathing normally, or has a pulse, you should not perform CPR. These signs indicate that their heart and lungs are still functioning.
The physicians and scientists at the Sarver Heart Center, have found that the old saying "Never perform CPR on beating heart" is not valid. According to these professionals, the chances that a bystander could harm a person by pressing on their chest are slim to none, even if the heart is working normally.
How long should I perform CPR before stopping? Some say that performing CPR for over 20 minutes doesn't provide any results, and it should be stopped. However, recent studies document that patients who receive 30+ minutes of CPR have a higher chance of survival.
Last Update: August 21, 2025; Next update: 2028. Chest compressions are the most important part of resuscitating someone. Also helping them to breathe by providing mouth-to mouth resuscitation is helpful, but not absolutely necessary.
Common First Aid Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
If you are alone, call 911 before you begin CPR. If there are others present, tell someone to call 911 and start with resuscitation. Regarding the ABCs of CPR, A stands for airway, B is for breathing, and C is for circulation.
Studies have found that in addition to being less complicated, CPR without rescue breaths may even be more effective than CPR with mouth-to-mouth because continuous chest compressions alone have been shown to sustain blood circulation more effectively for people in cardiac arrest.
If death is apparent, you should not continue performing CPR. CPR is meant for those in cardiac arrest. Instances such as catastrophic injuries, rigor mortis, a body being cold to the touch, and lividity render CPR useless.
In the medical world, it is established that 70% of patients during CPR have either rib fractures or bone breaks.
Recommended Procedure: “For these reasons, we believe it is appropriate to recommend the following: in case of vomiting, turn the victim onto their side, perform a finger sweep if needed, return the victim to their back, and restart CPR with chest compressions, beginning a new cycle regardless of the number of ...
CPR alone cannot restart a heart once it has stopped completely, however performing this action on a patient experiencing heart problems can help to maintain regular heart rhythms until the emergency services arrive at the scene and save a life.
Time and Survival:
20-Minute Rule: After at least 20 minutes of CPR without return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) or a viable cardiac rhythm, it's generally appropriate to consider stopping.
In the case that an individual shows evident signs of irreversible death, CPR should not be performed. These signs would include decapitation, decomposition, rigor mortis (stiffening of the body muscles), and dependent lividity (reddish-blue discoloration of the skin).
frequently reported complication of CPR has been skeletal injuries, specifically fractures of the rib and sternum. Upper airway complications including rup- ture ofthe trachea and esophagus have also been noted to be the result ofcardiac resuscitation, as have injuries to the gastrointestinal system.
Here are the situations when you should stop providing CPR:
Elam and Safar's findings led to the formal adoption of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation—popularly known as the “Kiss of Life.” This technique transformed emergency response, particularly for drowning and suffocation victims.
Give two breaths after every 30 chest compressions. If two people are doing CPR, give 1 to 2 breaths after every 15 chest compressions. Continue CPR until you see signs of life or until medical help arrives.
The three emergency action steps are often represented as the three Cs: check, call, care.