(News Medical) – Physicians may be drawing conclusions too soon about survival outcomes of patients who suffered a cardiac arrest outside the hospital.

A study led by Bentley Bobrow, MD, professor at the University of Arizona Colleges of Medicine in Tucson and Phoenix and co-director of the Arizona Emergency Medicine Research Center - Phoenix, and his fellow UA emergency medicine researchers, showed that physicians may need to allow comatose cardiac arrest patients much more time to awaken before making a prognosis. Gary Brauchla knows this from first-hand experience.

The day after his son's twins were born in 2012, Brauchla, 68, went into cardiac arrest as he slept in his home in Pearce, Ariz. Brauchla's wife, Kathie, a former surgical technician, immediately called 911 and started cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Fifteen minutes later, paramedics took over administering CPR and shocked his heart with a defibrillator, restoring his heart rhythm. CONTINUE