Peter Safar
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Physician, Professor of anaesthesia-resuscitation in the University of Pittsburgh, father of the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
born april 12 1924 in Vienna (Austria), died august 2 2003 in Mt. Lebanon, USA.
Peter Safar graduated from the University of Vienne in 1948. He married Eva Kyzivat, and moved from Vienna to Yale, USA in 1950 for surgical training. He worked in Lima (Peru, 1952), then in Baltimore (USA, 1954). He began to work on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in 1956; he worked with the firefighters to design the first emergency ambulance, and wrote the book ABC of resuscitation in 1957. He established the country's first intensive care unit in 1958. He then went to the University of Pittsburgh where he established the most important academic anesthesiology department. In 1966, he was deeply marked by the death of his daughter, Elisabeth, at the age of 11 from an acute asthmatic crisis. He initiated the Freedom House Enterprise Ambulance Service, the first paramedical emergency service in 1967. He also helped create the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine in 1976. He retired from chairmanship of anesthesiology and founded the International Resuscitation Research Center (now the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research) in 1979. He retired from practicing in 1989, at the age of 65.
He worked with the Laerdal company for the design of the CPR training mannequin Resusci Anne®. He was nominated three times for the Nobel prize in medicine. He also was a peace activist, member of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and of the World Federalist Association.