From the European Resuscitation Council Congress, Cologne, 2009.

A humorous paper compared the CPR rate of students who sang Nelly The Elephant with those who sang Staying Alive (the Bee Gees) and those who did not sing at all.

To achieve adequate coronary perfusion, the rate of CPR must be between 90 and 120 beats per minute. Interestingly, all participants managed to perform CPR between 90 and 120 bpm, so all of the CPR rates were acceptable, but those of you who teach Nelly will be pleased to know that it came out best, with an average of 104 bpm!

After questions it transpired that all the participants had the opportunity of practicing with a metronome first, which probably explains why all the rates were within the acceptable range!

A word of warning however – the study found that a higher proportion of those who sang Nelly did not compress the chest deep enough, which is arguably more important than the rate. Was this because the song distracted them?