On 17th March 2012 something happened on British television. On this fateful day a premiership footballer and a fine gentleman called Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the football field.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0XN1d6s2oU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Xw9Wh9aY8kA&feature=endscreen
He was successfully resuscitated and has since walked out of hospital with an implantable defibrillator. This was a moment of great achievement for the entire medical/paramedical/scientific community. We did not reach here easily. So lets go back and look at how we reached here. Now let us look at the various factors which have contributed to the successful resuscitation of Muamba.
1-Emergency Medical Services

They are truly the unsung heroes of innumerable lives saved in UK and worldwide. These are the angels that provide immediate assistance on the field, in your home and on the street. If you would like to know more about EMS please have a look at the following links.
http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-career/ambulance-service-team/careers-in-the-ambulance-service-team/paramedic/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_medical_services
http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=819
http://www.basics.org.uk/
2-Advanced life support
Guidelines on how to administer resuscitation were first brought out by the American Heart Association in 1974 and have subsequently been revised many times. What is probably more important for successful resuscitation is Basic Life Support. Successful vaccination against a particular virus is dependent on crowd immunity- that magical critical percentage of the population who have been vaccinated. Similarly successful resuscitation will be directly proportional to crowd BLSability(once again an unknown magical percentage of members of public who can provide BLS).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_life_support
http://www.resus.org.uk/siteindx.htm
http://www.resus.org.uk/pages/bls.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpQqqZJIptM
3-Definitive treatment
Obviously this will depend on the diagnosis. There has been a lot of interest in sudden death among young adults. Fabrice Muamba has been a great catalyst in speeding up the minds of various people to tackle this largely preventable problem.

http://www.c-r-y.org.uk/index.htm?gclid=CLvo9PSwxrMCFbMbtAodUBYAkw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unexpected_death_syndrome
http://www.sads.org.uk/
http://www.bhf.org.uk/research/research-milestones/sads.aspx
This blog post is not meant to be an encyclopaedia of knowledge nor is it meant as a replacement of traditional sources of information and advice like your textbooks, journals and healthcare professionals. This is just a little stimulant for further reading for everyone including me. I would like to thank all my colleagues who have helped me gather information and have been a source of inspiration to write this article. I dedicate this article to the innumerable young adults who die worldwide just because of lack of simple basic life support, absence of an organised EMS and apathy among the people who run health services.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0XN1d6s2oU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Xw9Wh9aY8kA&feature=endscreen
He was successfully resuscitated and has since walked out of hospital with an implantable defibrillator. This was a moment of great achievement for the entire medical/paramedical/scientific community. We did not reach here easily. So lets go back and look at how we reached here. Now let us look at the various factors which have contributed to the successful resuscitation of Muamba.
1-Emergency Medical Services
They are truly the unsung heroes of innumerable lives saved in UK and worldwide. These are the angels that provide immediate assistance on the field, in your home and on the street. If you would like to know more about EMS please have a look at the following links.
http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-career/ambulance-service-team/careers-in-the-ambulance-service-team/paramedic/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_medical_services
http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=819
http://www.basics.org.uk/
2-Advanced life support
Guidelines on how to administer resuscitation were first brought out by the American Heart Association in 1974 and have subsequently been revised many times. What is probably more important for successful resuscitation is Basic Life Support. Successful vaccination against a particular virus is dependent on crowd immunity- that magical critical percentage of the population who have been vaccinated. Similarly successful resuscitation will be directly proportional to crowd BLSability(once again an unknown magical percentage of members of public who can provide BLS).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_life_support
http://www.resus.org.uk/siteindx.htm
http://www.resus.org.uk/pages/bls.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpQqqZJIptM
3-Definitive treatment
Obviously this will depend on the diagnosis. There has been a lot of interest in sudden death among young adults. Fabrice Muamba has been a great catalyst in speeding up the minds of various people to tackle this largely preventable problem.
http://www.c-r-y.org.uk/index.htm?gclid=CLvo9PSwxrMCFbMbtAodUBYAkw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unexpected_death_syndrome
http://www.sads.org.uk/
http://www.bhf.org.uk/research/research-milestones/sads.aspx
This blog post is not meant to be an encyclopaedia of knowledge nor is it meant as a replacement of traditional sources of information and advice like your textbooks, journals and healthcare professionals. This is just a little stimulant for further reading for everyone including me. I would like to thank all my colleagues who have helped me gather information and have been a source of inspiration to write this article. I dedicate this article to the innumerable young adults who die worldwide just because of lack of simple basic life support, absence of an organised EMS and apathy among the people who run health services.