Termination of pre-hospital resuscitation by anaesthesiologists - causes and consequences. A retrospective study.

In one patient in 30, the MECU refrained from futile resuscitation in cases where legislation required an EMT to initiate resuscitation. This practice reduced unethical attempts of resuscitation, reduced unnecessary emergency ambulance transports, and reduced the work load of the hospital resuscitation teams for one unnecessary alarm every third day. Differentiating between lifeless patients and dead patients not exhibiting reliable signs of death, however, is a complex task which is only sparsely documented.