Regarding CPR, I swear I've read that it's basically useless. Like, even among paramedics, it's only like a 5% success rate or something. Bottom line, don't worry about the person giving it to you, because they probably aren't helping anyway.
Paramedics don't perform CPR because they have access to advanced equipment, defibrillators in particular. While CPR is capable of restoring a normal heartbeat or at least a shockable heartbeat, the point of CPR is to keep blood circulating, preventing brain and organ damage from lack of oxygenated blood. Training/confidence with the use of an AED is much more important than CPR training, since every minute that passes without a shock dramatically increases the chance of death, in the case of a shockable rhythm.
Not sure if trolling or just stupid. Defibrillators don't pull someone out of asystole like they do on TV shows. Defibrillators shock the heart out of an irregular rhythm like v-fib or v-tach back into a regular sinus rhythm. AEDs work remarkably well and can easily be the difference between life and death in a cardiac episode, which is why you see AEDs mounted on walls more and more often these days. At O'hare Airport there is nowhere in the entire terminal where you're more than ~100 feet from an AED.
If you weren't so bent out of shape on this subject for whatever reason, you might have realized he was joking.
