Bystander CPR Save Underscores Importance of Community Role

“Everyone has a part to play and when everything aligns, you get the best chance for a good outcome,” said Mike Roulette, an apparatus operator and paramedic with Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue in Portland, Oregon. Saves like the one involving Bob Brands are a daily reminder of why the work he does in the community is so important. Brands was taking a breather between go-kart races on Feb. 22, 2015, when he suddenly collapsed. An employee at the racing center immediately called 9-1-1. Evan Schenck, another racer, began CPR. Within moments, a sheriff’s deputy had arrived and was applying an automated external defibrillator (AED) when Roulette and his crew arrived. “It was one of those calls where it seemed like everything clicked and that doesn’t happen that often,” Roulette said. According to the American Heart Association Guidelines for CPR & ECC, about 90% of the more than 350,000 people in the U.S. who experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrests die. But CPR, especially when performed immediately, can double or triple a cardiac arrest victim’s chance of survival. Brands, then 67, required several AED shocks before regaining a pulse and being transported to the hospital. There, testing revealed two blockages that would require stents, including one in the left anterior descending artery (LAD)—sometimes called the “widow maker” because the survival rate is so low. Brands was put into a medically-induced coma and awakened a few days la...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Patient Care Cardiac & Resuscitation Source Type: news