The Myth of the “Golden Hour”

At some point, everyone must have heard the term the golden hour in which an individual must receive care. Often people hear that within the hour, people who suffer any traumatic injury of any kind will often have a better chance of surviving. Unfortunately, that's not the case anymore. Modern medicine and science indicate that every injury and traumatic issue is different, and the severity of the situation is also highly different (Lerner, & Moscati, 2001). As a result, the golden hour rule may not be valid (Lerner, & Moscati, 2001). The ideal goal is to seek care, provide medical attention or assist as soon as possible, if not immediately (Lerner, & Moscati, 2001).

This entire idea came from a restructure in care that occured in the post Vietnam War era(Hoemeke, Rossiter, Augustin, Cortés-Rodríguez, & Joseph, 2021). The idea started off in Emergency and Trauma medicine and branched out as a general idea to seek care within the hour to minimize the detrimental effects that come from a traumatic injury (Hoemeke et al., 2021).  It branched out on a global level to encourage people to make way for ambulances and say they need to get to the hospital within the hour so that the doctor can help (Hoemeke et al., 2021). It was a generalized idea to encourage and promote social awareness around seeking and providing care for someone with a traumatic injury within a specific time frame (Hoemeke et al., 2021). Decades later medicine has now developed imaging styles and other things that have helped determine the true meaning of what it means to get emergent care.

 The message from most, if not all, healthcare providers is to seek care as soon as possible, and provide assistance immediately (Hoemeke et al., 2021). From a CPR and first aid perspective, if you see someone injured, call 9-1-1 immediately and go help if you can and feel comfortable enough to provide that kind of assistance. If someone is experiencing a  cardiac arrest, one should provide CPR immediately. Take just 90 minutes of your time to train and become CPR certified to truly makes a difference in such situations. Earn your certification today with SMART Certification and become well acquainted with CPR and first aid from the comfort of your home, at your own pace, and most importantly with hands-on training and accurate feedback from your home. 

Sometimes even 60 minutes is too late, but just 90 minutes of your time now can truly save someone's life and increase their chances of survival later. 

References

Hoemeke, L., Rossiter, N., Augustin, S., Cortés-Rodríguez, A., & Joseph, M. (2021). The Golden Hour: The Critical Time Between Life and Death | Think Global Health. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 21 March 2022, from https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/golden-hour-critical-time-between-life-and-death.

Lerner, E. B., & Moscati, R. M. (2001). The golden hour: scientific fact or medical "urban legend"?. Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, 8(7), 758–760. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1553-2712.2001.tb00201.x