EMT class- emergency!
So the last few weeks in EMT class we've been covering CPR and AED's (the shocker things.)
Last night, about 3/4 through class, someone runs in our door:
"SOMEONE IS HAVING A HEART ATTACK"
*pow* our instructor was gone. not a second thought- jsut bookin' it. he called back to grab a BVM - breathing mask with a bag. We all ran over to the field, and sure enough there was a guy laying on the ground surrounded by some people. 55 year old playing soccer with friends & son (~my age), went into cardio arrest. apparently he went down 5 minutes before our isntructor, Jim, got there. Someone who was there had started (poor & ineffective) CPR about 1.5 minutes after the guy went down. As we were running up, we heard sirens in the background.
The dude was not doing well. He was already getting blue in the face. Jim starts pumping away at the CPR. The nurse chick who was visiting our class arrived and started venelating. They did perfect textbook CPR, 30 compressions/2 breaths, Jim switch off from doing compressions right at the 2 minute mark.
The firefighters got there and started setting up while Jim and the nurse were still doing CPR (about 1-2 minutes after they started.)
They hooked up the AED- "shock advised", they shocked him, nothing. Continue CPR. 2 minutes later, analized him again- "shock advised"... bam! and shortly after he got back his own heart beat. He's still really blue at this point. They drop a traychal tube down his throat and into his lungs and are feeding air directly into him. Heart's still slightly beating, they have an IV going (no drugs though), and are giving him breaths. His body starts trying to breathe- agonial breaths (which aren't real and dont do anyhting, sjut sounds like he's groaning.) They continue to breathe for him and start carting him up into the truck and take him away.
It was absolutely amazing to watch. They saved him! With every minute that passes once you go into cardiac arrest, you lose a 10% chance at survival. Do the math. Jim said 1.5 mil Americans go into cardiac arrest a year, half of those are outside of the hospital, and out of those 97% don't make it.
We got back to the class, and the guy sitting next to me was absolutely amazed. He is a current EMT and is taking the class to re-certify. I asked him if he had ever had to perform CRP on someone
"Ohh yeah."
I asked him if he had ever lost one,
and I quote:
"Every single one"
It's not that he was a poor EMT, just that situations like that are hard to fix. Especially without an AED. It was absolutely amazing to see the process... everything happened exactly as our books said they should. It was like watching the Hand of God, it really was. Now every ambition that I have in doing rescue (esp. pararescue) has been completely validated. If I can even save ONE person like that man was saved, I'd feel like my time here on Earth has been for something, at least.