Hi Grushnik, You make some good points there, and although I didn't pad out my post with too many details it seems that we think pretty much alike. We checked to see if there was any advance directives about not resuscitating the patient, and there wasn't any - we got the best history of the patient from the District nursing notes that we found at the home. When I worked in hospitals I was often involved in a DNR order, the NHS likes teamwork because it means not one person can get the blame. You are right about cultural issues, and that in a pre-hospital setting, you often don't have the time to 'deviant from the norm' of resuscitation. I think that we did the right thing to resuscitate, but to terminate the attempt at home. That way I think that they could see how we were taking their wishes into account. As for terminating a resuscitation - I spoke a little about it here, in that a paramedic can terminate a resuscitation attempt after five cycles of CPR + Medication. The reason why it didn't take 20 minutes, but instead took 30 minutes is partly due to being unable to get IV access, and the first two ET (breathing tubes) that we put down had a punctured cuff (meaning that they were next to useless) I know that in a hospital setting you check the cuff - but it's something that sometimes goes undone when out on the road, dealing with an arrest, surrounded by angry relatives. Personally I agree that it was too long to continue a resuscitation in those circumstances - If it were up to me I would have done 2-3 cycles and then stopped, but unfortunately we have to follow the protocol. The LAS and government give us leeway in a lot of things, but unfortunately this isn't one of those cases. I also may have rounded up the time a little - timekeeping tends to go out the window when someone dies in front of you, and everyone in the room is busy doing other things. A lot of our times are 'guesstimated' sometime after the job. (Fear of being sued, methinks) As for what you would say...are you sure you weren't one of the people in the room? As that is pretty much exactly what we said and did (with the exception of 'following protocol' instead of 'realistic period'). I think that it worked, as it seemed to calm the room down a lot. Agreed that most relatives think that they can 'call the shots', and we do sometimes find ourselves bargaining - something that had my ethics described as a 'Serbian war criminal' when I suggested this during a nursing course... And when I find I can't walk upright, am in pain or otherwise am generally fed up of life - I'll have DNR tattooed on my chest