P2-19 Heart rate, blood loss & cardiac arrest

Heart rate

The heart rate (pulse) is affected by the amount of blood lost and medications.

• Low: 45 and below
• Normal: between 46 and 119
• High: 120 and above

A normal heartrate is around 80 in a healthy soldier.

Cardiac arrest

A patient will enter cardiac arrest when:

• The heart rate is below 20.
• The heart rate is above 200.
• The systolic blood pressure is above 260.
• The diastolic blood pressure is below 40 and the heart rate is above 190.
• The systolic blood pressure is above 145 and the heart rate is above 150.

Blood Loss

There are five states of blood loss and any medic should be able to differentiate between them and apply IVs based on how much blood is needed.

Losing a fatal amount of blood is not unrecoverable in our system. So long as the blood loss is stopped as soon as possible. More information about this can be found in "Medical System Philosophy".

Blood, besides heartrate is the most important vital. CPR will have no effect if blood loss is fatal (more than 40%) as the patient will slip into cardiac arrest again after a few seconds. Regaining consciousness is impossible/very unlikely without at least "Lost some blood" (less than 15% blood loss) status as well.