TOPLINE:

Public videos of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests showed brief warning signs before collapse, frequent seizure-like movements or gasping afterwards, and a gap between quick recognition and starting cardiopulmonary resuscitation or using a defibrillator.

METHODOLOGY:

• In this descriptive study, researchers systematically reviewed publicly available videos of real out-of-hospital cardiac arrests to assess how these emergencies unfolded in everyday settings.
• They included YouTube and Google videos recorded between 1984 and 2025 that showed a real out-of-hospital cardiac arrest with visible collapse. Cases were corroborated when possible.
• The analysis included 127 publicly available videos depicting 145 cases of unique out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (median age, 27 years; 87% men) from all continents, with most recordings (51%) coming from closed-circuit television cameras. Age was estimated where missing.
• The videos were analysed to retrieve information on patient details, circumstances and activity before the cardiac arrest, pre-arrest signs, nature of collapse and following signs, response of bystanders to cardiac arrest, and treatment.

TAKEAWAY:

• Signs before the cardiac arrest were visible in 98% of patients and lasted a median of 3 seconds. The most common signs included slowing or pausing activity (49%), altered head or arm movements (32%), and reaching for support (28%).
• No single direction of fall was found, and patients fell to the front (28%), back (28%), right (10%), left (15%), or straight down (20%). Overall, 57% of patients were engaged in sports or physical activity.
• Visible post-collapse signs were observed in 66% of assessable cases, which included seizure-like movements (36%), agonal breathing (22%), and both (8%). Bystanders took a median of 1 second to notice the collapse and 2 seconds to approach the patients and provided cardiopulmonary resuscitation in 38% of assessable cases.
• Automated external defibrillators were retrieved in 16 cases and used in nine cases. Survival information was available for 61% of cases, with 38% of those surviving.

IN PRACTICE:

"Our video-based observations reinforce these messages with concrete, real-world imagery and timings, suggesting value in incorporating curated, ethically sourced footage into lay and professional training to improve recognition fidelity and decisional confidence," the authors of the study wrote.

SOURCE:

This study was led by Kristin Alm-Kruse and Tommaso Scquizzato, both from the Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy. It was published online on December 22, 2025, in Resuscitation.

LIMITATIONS:

The dataset was not representative and skewed towards crowded or sport-related events involving younger males. Key details on patient demographics, outcomes, and confirmed diagnoses were often incomplete. Videos were brief, about 1 minute, and mostly focused on footage before the event, which limited the assessment of post-arrest care.

DISCLOSURES:

This study was funded by the European Union — Next Generation EU. One author reported serving as a social media editor of Resuscitation.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.