The American Heart Association estimates that if the national survival rate for cardiac arrest victims could be increased to 20 percent, 50,000 lives would be saved.

Some major teaching hospitals already put comatose cardiac arrest victims on ice, but many smaller ones do not.

It took the association's expert panel years to come to a firm conclusion because it is difficult to run clinical studies of cardiac arrest victims.

It has been suggested that AEDs carried on elevators could save critical minutes for cardiac arrest victims, and reduce their deployment cost.

Successful defibrillation following lengthy closed chest massage as described by Kouwenhoven in 1960 was first applied to cardiac arrest victims in the community in Belfast in 1966.

Early defibrillation remains the most important determinant of survival in cardiac arrest victims.

Then she reread the extensive material on Nancy Greenly and the two respiratory arrest victims.

"Many communities that have not been able to deliver definitive care to cardiac arrest victims will be able to do so with the advent of this new technology," Dr. Weaver said.

Rescuers are often warned against mistaking agonal breathing, which is a series of noisy gasps occurring in around 40% of cardiac arrest victims, for normal breathing.

In 1994, only 1.4 percent of more than 4,000 serious cardiac arrest victims survived the incident.