I've been in enough futile codes that I hope there isn't any consciousness beyond the "lights out" point. Especially since most of the codes I participated in were in a pediatric hospital. It doesn't matter that the brain shut off more than half an hour ago...you just have to keep doing compressions and pantomiming the code until the parents consent to calling it. I've seen it get dragged out an extra 45 minutes past where the physician would have called it because the mom didn't want T.O.D. called until after the dad got to the hospital from work. It's better with adults, but not by much. There's only been a handful of times where caving in the sternum was actually worth the destruction involved.