Ethical guidelines on out-of-hospital cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) are designed to provide substantial guidance for the people who have to make decisions and deal with situations in the real world. The crucial question is whether it is possible to formulate practical guidelines that will make things somewhat easier for ambulance personnel. The aims of this article are to address the ethical aspects related to out-of-hospital CPR, primarily to decisions on not starting or terminating resuscitation attempts, using the views and experience of ambulance personnel as a starting point, and to summarise the key points in a practice guideline on the subject.