You broke ribs? You split a sternum? Never done that, even on ninety year olds, and seen vanishingly few cases of people who have. That kind of talk is part of the problem, even if breaking ribs is not a very big deal. Breathing is still done in current American and Canadian guidelines. AED does save people, but CPR gives them a chance.
I’m male. In 2016, at 53, I had an MI that twice led to vfib. I never had chest pain [*], but I did have fatigue, nausea, and neck/jaw pain (particularly right before I arrested the second time, right outside the cath lab).
[*] It’s not strictly true that I had no chest pain. As they worked on me in the cath lab, one of the doctors kept checking in with me and asking if my chest hurt. It did, so they’d root around for awhile longer. After more than an hour of that, he was incredulous that my chest still hurt and then suddenly said “Oh, you don’t know! They did CPR on you and probably broke ribs.” Having broken ribs before, I could confirm that that’s exactly what it felt like, but no, I had had no idea that they’d done CPR on me (or that they’d defibrillated me); I’d just gone away a couple of times.
I don’t know how common it is, but they definitely broke mine. But, no, it’s not a big deal. At least not compared to being dead.
That’s fine if you have a fully charged phone and/or have witnesses. That should usually be the case, but by no means a universal assumption.
Someone will be recording. Cell phones, CC security, Ring doorbells, Traffic cameras.
We are being watched everywhere we are.
You need a fully charged phone to call 911? News to me. Hell, a lot of places still have land lines.
I don’t think I’ve ever been out in the public with dead phone. If it was dead I’d leave it behind to charge.
Easy enough to charge in the car on the way somewhere.
Three times, all in women, I saw a heart attack present just with hiccups. That isn’t in the textbooks.
You are supposed to push on the chest hard enough to go one third the depth, or about two inches. Then let go just long enough to allow the chest to recoil into position. Elderly people may be osteopenic and tend to have less chest wall elasticity. But the push isn’t like, say, being hit by a bus. And the force can be distributed over the hand, several ribs. Sure, one might break them. But no need to overemphasize this since it is a factor in not doing CPR at all (and only of consequence if it leads to flail chest, which I have never seen from CPR). And most of the time it just doesn’t happen.
Of course availability of AED, landlines, phone coverage and EMS response times will vary significantly.
I was told it might happen, any but to worry about it. But that it was likely to happen. But i hope never to need to do CPR for real. I don’t think i could keep it up for very long.
When I was working for the state, I asked why we had ZERO emergency training and was told that we were to never do any sort of first aid to anyone, ever. If we followed procedure and called 911, the state couldn’t be sued. If we touched anyone, even just to break a fall, the state could possibly be sued and we would lose our jobs the next day.
I realize that my earlier post could be construed as disputing that women’s symptoms are different. Quite the contrary; it’s a real problem that most people are unaware that heart attack presents differently, and more subtly, in women.
Even in men, though, the common image of MI is just not what happened to me. If I’d been digging in the garden the day before, I’d have never questioned the cramp in my left bicep, and I’d be dead right now. The pain was not severe and was not “radiating”; it was just inexplicable. Still, my wife was the one with the good sense to call 911; I was just going to look up symptoms on the internet.
Neck and jaw pain, chest pressure and pain similar to acid reflux are not uncommon. Heart attacks can be tricky. I am not sure if previously having broken ribs says anything about the likelihood of rib fracture during CPR (depends on mechanism). But the important thing is you are here. 
Once someone fainted while I was talking to her, and I caught her, and even put her on a couch in an appropriate position to recover, made sure she was ok etc. I was not at work, though (though I was working for the state). Are you saying I should have taken a step back and let her hit her head on something?
The same thing can be said for CPR in a hospital environment as well.
In the pre-cell phone days, I was taught in a self-defense class that if there’s ever a bystander situation, point at a random person and say “YOU, call 911” or whatever needed to be done.
I recently saw the LUCAS device on a TV show (can’t remember which one).
Again, that’s a very loose and blithe assumption.
I’m a blithe spirit, what can I say? 
But think about it.
How often would you be walking alone in perfect wilderness and come upon a person laying on the ground having a life threatening heart attack, then dies and, as needs must, you give CPR?
Oh lord, your cell phone is dead and no one else is around. You’re running out of steam. What to do?
Well, you stop. There’s no way to keep this person alive. No way to get help. You gotta stop or risk your own health.
Are you really gonna worry about optics?
I would have to say at least, (guessing) 99% of the time the event would happen where other people are. Or close enough to holler for help. Or call 911.
And, guessing again, 80% of the time there will be a recording device around somewhere.
Further guessing, if a person fell out in full arrest, they have a history. I think there will be a way to explain to LE you were trying to help not raping the woman. I think I can assume that without reservations.
Oh goodness ! I’ve never talked to anyone who’s split a sternum. I wonder what sort of CPR technique would bring that about. On the other hand, I’ve broken ribs galore. Probably more often than not.
Certainly we don’t want to dwell on it, Dr. P. You’re right. But not mentioning it at all might make some people stop CPR when it happens, fearing that they’re doing something wrong. Most instructors I’ve known mention it briefly, with the focus being “don’t worry about the ribs, saving a life is more important.”
Privately, among EMS folk, we acknowledge that that first multiple crunch of broken ribs means it will very easy to find your hand position thereafter. (Yeah, I know, we’re awful.)
A number of other points, just for the record:
Do the CPR if someone needs it. These days, everyone knows what CPR looks like. Besides that, a glance will tell the difference between a sleeping or drugged victim of groping and a dead person being kept alive by chest compressions.
Do the CPR if someone needs it. Even if you didn’t have a class recently. Or ever. You might not do top quality CPR, but how badly would you have to perform for it to be worse than dying? 911 dispatchers routinely talk people through the steps.
Do the CPR if someone needs it. How do you know if they need it? Lack of normal breathing. (Normal. That means that occasional gasps don’t count.) Research shows we suck at checking pulses, and breathing turns out to be a better guide.
Mouth-to-mouth is often unnecessary, but that’s a little nuanced. When bystanders start CPR, the so-called “hands only” style may have a better survival rate.
The arrest victims most likely to survive are those whose arrest came from a sudden dysrhythmia, and they probably collapsed with lungs full of air and a bloodstream full of oxygen. They won’t need breaths for a while, so rescue breathing would just mean more “time off the chest.”
But those whose arrest stemmed from low oxygen levels - drowning, strangulation, opiate overdose, etc. - still need rescue breathing to survive. Arrest in children and infants almost always comes from low oxygen levels. So learn how to do mouth-to-mouth. It’s icky, but last I heard there has never been a confirmed case of any infectious disease transmission during mouth-to-mouth.
Make sure 911 is called. But you know what? Of all the drugs and gadgets on the ambulance, and in the E.R. for most of them there is NO actual proof they do anything. What brings people back is CPR and a nickel’s worth of electricity through the heart, ASAP. (With emphasis on the ASAP.) Start CPR and make sure an AED is on the way.
Switch out with someone else frequently. Even for folks in great shape the quality of the compressions deteriorates after about 2 minutes.
(As an aside: I’ve gotten damn good at compressing mannequin chests. I can go five minutes or way longer with no drop in compression rate or quality. Studly, no? Well, smug anyway. Yeah, and last time I did CPR on a human, I could not wait for my two minutes to be up. I was drained.)
1/3 the depth of the chest is the compression depth you aim at for children and infants. For adults the recommendation is 2 to 2.4 inches. Rate (except for infants) is 110 to 120 per minute. Various songs are recommended to time your compressions. At 110 per minute “Another One Bites the Dust.” is perfect, but only if you DON’T sing out loud.
I did of course mean “a functioning cell phone”, which is a requirement of making a phone call if you don’t have a land line. Yes some places have landlines. I can’t remember the last time I saw one on a hiking trail, or roadside, or beach, or for that matter anywhere in a residential neighborhood. In a gym or grocery store, sure, but it’s not a thing to take as a given.