An arrest is presumed to be of cardiac etiology unless it is known or likely to have been caused by trauma, drowning, respiratory causes, asphyxia, electrocution, drug overdose, poisoning/intoxication, hemorrhage/exsanguination, or any other non-cardiac cause as best determined by rescuers.

In CARES, when importing NEMSIS 3.5.0 files, values in eArrest.02 are mapped to CARES Etiologies. If a provider wants to document a specific, definitely known etiology which is not on the primary list, CardiacEtiologyOther can be used to manually document free text in the custom element. It should only be sent with eArrest.02 = Other (3002011). This is uncommonly used, but exists so that an provider can fill in the free text field if a specific known etiology is available and not on the eArrest.02 list. CARES definitely does not want the custom element to used for sending Other, Not in List, Cardiac, Unknown or ****other generic or primary etilogy type answers in the custom element.

Other should only be used if the cause of arrest is known and documented but is not one of the available options. “Other” is not the default answer and therefore should not be used for “unknown” etiologies. If an etiology is unknown, it should be “Presumed Cardiac” and CardiacEtiologyOther should not be present in the file.

To illustrate when an agency might want to use the custom element, here are some valid examples of free text to send in CardiacEtiologyOther: Anaphylaxis; End Stage Cancer; Carbon Monoxide (CO) Poisoning; Chemical Poisoning; Hyperthermia or Hypothermia; Labor Complications; Metabolic Disease (DKA, Hypo or Hyperkalemia, Hyponatremia, Hypo or Hyperglycemia, Renal or Liver Failure); Pulmonary Embolism (PE); Stroke or CVA; Sudden Unexplained Infant Death (SUID); Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)