Not in drowning - not if you want to give the patient the best chance.
This case is a classic example of a drowning patient who was saved by ventilation alone and who probably would have died had the rescuers performed compression only CPR. Compression only CPR works for community cardiac arrest due to cardiac events. In this setting breathing stops because the heart stops, and the lungs contain moderate amounts of oxygen at the time. Providing only chest compressions will provide some benefit because the blood gets oxygenated, at least for a while, as it passes through the lungs. However, compression only CPR is wrong in drowning. In this setting breathing stops because of hypoxia and this precedes cardiac arrest. The only real chance the patient has is to prevent cardiac arrest in the first place - by providing rescue breaths and restoring oxygenation before the heart stops. That is clearly what has happened here. The fact that the patient resumed spontaneous breathing before any paramedical input makes it almost certain that breathing had stopped but cardiac arrest had not occurred at the time they began their resuscitation.
These perspectives have been clearly articulated in consensus guidelines released on management of drowning by the European Resuscitation Counsel and on rescue of an unresponsive diver by the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society. I will post a copy of the UHMS guidelines tomorrow.
Simon M
