In 20 years, I've only got 3 back - and one of those was during a fast inter-hospital transfer with an CCU nurse on board. (Strange feeling, doing CPR/Resusc alongside someone whose patients normally live, and who expects this one to do the same!) Re the "time to say goodbye" comments, though: - it's not always the case. About 12 years ago we responded to a man in his 60s who had suffered cardiac arrest outside the house of a lady who happened to be a nurse tutor. She and her mother were in the garden at the time. The mother raised the alarm, whilst the tutor started highly-effective CPR; she was joined shortly by a shepherd (good at resusc on lambs), by us, and by a GP. The man's heart re-started at the third shock. He subsequently survived for three weeks in Persistent Vegetative State. I work in small-town Scotland where everyone knows everyone else and, during those three weeks, the patient's family and friends made it abundantly clear to myself and to my colleagues (in the street, in the pub, in the supermarket, etc) that they did NOT think that we had done a Good Thing. Seeing the patient in PVS, with the possibilty of his living like that for years, was NOT a good outcome, so far as the family was concerned, and the guy who had been at the incident with me was offered the opinion in the pub one afternoon that it would have been better had we just minded our own f****ng business. Give my mate credit, though, he finished his beer, picked up his shopping, said "That's exactly what we did do", and left. If you do the right thing, you can never be wrong - but 'tain't always easy.