If your heart were to stop suddenly, you'd think a hospital
would be the safest place to be. Maybe not. An alarming new
study, released today in the New England Journal of Medicine,
says that in about a third of cardiac arrest cases nationwide,
hospital staffs do not respond quickly enough, which increases
the risk of brain damage and death, and may contribute to the
deaths of thousands of Americans every year. Watch the full
report tonight on "World News with Charles Gibson" at 6:30 p.m.
ET On television a "code blue" is called, and doctors and nurses
come running with a defibrillator to shock the heart back to
life. But in actuality, hospital staffs often don't move that
fast, and the consequences can be chilling. If you get prompt
defibrillation within two minutes of cardiac arrest, your
changes of surviving are nearly 40 percent. But delay
defibrillation — even by a few minutes — and your chances tumble
to 22.2 percent. Today's study, which looked at 6,789 cardiac
arrest cases at 369 hospitals, showed tha