18 Facts About Peter Safar

Peter Safar was an Austrian anesthesiologist of Czech descent.

Peter Safar's father, Karl Safar, was an ophthalmologist, and his mother, Vinca Safar-Landauer, was a pediatrician.

However, Peter Safar ultimately escaped the Holocaust and graduated from the University of Vienna in 1948.

Peter Safar married Eva Kyzivat, of Czech descent, and moved from Vienna to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1949 for surgical training at Yale University.

Peter Safar completed training in anesthesiology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1952.

In 1952 Peter Safar worked in Lima, Peru, and founded the first academic anesthesiology department in the country.

Peter Safar influenced Norwegian doll maker Asmund Laerdal of Laerdal company to design and manufacture mannequins for CPR training called Resusci Anne.

Peter Safar, who began to work on CPR in 1956 at Baltimore City Hospital, demonstrated in a series of experiments on paralyzed human volunteers that rescuer exhaled-air mouth-to-mouth breathing could maintain satisfactory oxygen levels in the non-spontaneously breathing victim, and showed that even laypeople could effectively perform mouth-to-mouth breathing to save lives.

Peter Safar wrote the book ABC of Resuscitation in 1957, which established the basis for mass training of CPR.

Peter Safar initiated the Freedom House Enterprise Ambulance Service, one of the first prehospital emergency medical services in the United States in 1967 and together with Dr Nancy Caroline, developed standards for emergency medical technician education and training, as well as standards for mobile intensive-care ambulance design and equipment.

In 1970, Peter Safar was among a group of 29 individuals meeting in Los Angeles, California who co-founded the Society of Critical Care Medicine.

Dr Peter Safar served in 1971 as the Society's second president, following the founding president Dr Max Harry Weil.

In 1976, Peter Safar co-founded the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine, which is dedicated to saving lives in major disasters.

Peter Safar stepped down from the chairmanship of anesthesiology at the University of Pittsburgh and founded the International Resuscitation Research Center in 1979, dedicated to cardiopulmonary cerebral resuscitation.

Peter Safar practiced and taught clinical anesthesiology at Presbyterian University Hospital in Pittsburgh until the age of 65, but he continued his research activities until his death.

In 1999, Peter Safar was awarded the Cross of Honor, Austria's highest civilian honor, for his services in the field of medicine.

Peter Safar was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Peter Safar died on 3 August 2003 at his home in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania, from cancer.