Another save...

Teen goes into cardiac arrest after seizure at WW-P North

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Alex Zdan

STAFF WRITER

PLAINSBORO -- Fast-responding EMTs and police treated a 15-year-old student who went into cardiac arrest at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North Monday, police said.

Emergency responders were called to the school at 1:01 p.m. after a male student in line at gym class collapsed and began having a seizure, police said.

Two minutes later, police and EMTs arrived to find the gym teacher performing CPR on the student, who was in cardiac arrest. They used a defibrillator to restart the teen's heart, and he began breathing on his own, police said.

The student was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick for further treatment.

A counterpoint to Miki's death...

[If you are not familiar with Miki's death, visit www.slicc.org ]

Miguel Garcia 'continues to improve' after suffering heart-attack during Spanish league game

By MATT FORTUNE

Spanish second division side UD Salamanca have released a very positive statement about the health of player Miguel Garcia who 'died' for almost half a minute during Sunday's match against Real Betis.

Garcia collapsed in the centre circle after suffering a heart attack early in the second half. The 31-year-old was revived on the pitch before being rushed to Salamanca's University Hospital, where the club say his condition continues to improve following surgery.

Team physician Jose Ignacio Garrido said after the match that the player was legally dead for 25 seconds. He added that his playing days were almost certainly over.

Cardiac arrest: Salamanca's Miguel Garcia collapsed after suffering a heart-attack during a league match in Spain on Sunday

The statement on the club website said: 'The health status of Miguel Garcia continues to evolve successfully. He had a good night and this morning medical services at the hospital informed UD Salamanca that his vital signs are normal. Miguel Garcia will remain at the Intensive Care Unit.

'Miguel Garcia remains stable and recovering from cardiac arrest suffered in the match.'

'UD Salamanca want to show their sincere appreciation to the medical services at the hospital and to the medical services of the club, Real Betis and the Salamanca Red Cross for their rapid and efficient intervention.

'Similarly, the UD Salamanca wish to thanked the media for exemplary behavior, concern and understanding for the sad event at the stadium Helmántico.'

Betis team doctor Tomas Calero's diagnosis over Garcia's future was clear after assisting in saving the player's life.

'If he had a heart attack at his age, he can't compete in elite-level sport,' Calero was quoted as saying in El Pais.

Panic: Players, management and medical staff were left in tears as Garcia was treated and then rushed to hospital

The incident left players stunned, with many breaking down in tears.

Garcia's collapse is not the first time a player has suffered a heart attack during a La Liga game, and Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport hit out at the effectiveness of the medical checks carried out in Spain in their edition on Monday.

Been here before: Sevilla defender Antonio Puerta died in 2007 aged just 22 after collapsing during a match

Antonio Puerta, a rising Spanish star, died of cardiac arrest at the age of 22 while playing for Sevilla in 2007.

While not on the pitch, another Spaniard, 26-year-old Espanyol captain Dani Jarque, suffered a fatal heart attack last year. And just a few months ago, a similar accident claimed the life of Jordi Pitarque, a player from the Catalonian third division.

Real Madrid's Ruben de la Red also suffered a similar episode during a game two years ago and never returned to play.

As a result of the previous tragedies, a defibrillator is a legal requirement at all professional Spanish matches, as well as any sports centre in the countries.

Daughter's CPR class, quick thinking helps her dad survive cardiac arrest; 'She's definitely my hero, no doubt about it,' Kenmore's Troy Baker says

By TOM CORRIGAN

Bothell Reporter Staff writer
Today, 12:50 PM

Neither Kirsten Baker, 17, nor her father, Troy Baker, said so, but had Aug. 14 gone as planned for the Kenmore family, Kirsten might have found herself in a bit of trouble.

Kirsten spent the night prior to Aug. 14 at a friend's house. She was supposed to be back home by a certain time the next morning because Troy, 40, planned on taking his family to the Wild Waves water park. Kirsten said she was about a half-hour or so late in getting home.

"I kind of now believe everything happens for a reason," she said.

Kirsten added the thought that if she hadn't come home late, her father may have suffered his cardiac arrest while driving the family down Interstate 5.

As it was, Kirsten came in the door to find her dad passed out face down on the floor, unresponsive and apparently not breathing.

"I'm surprised I didn't break down and cry," she said.

Instead, Kirsten said she screamed for her mother and called 911. Kirsten said her mom, Callie Baker, didn't answer right away, but her grandmother, Patty Helms, came up from the home's basement. Eventually, Kirsten, Helms and Callie were able to turn Troy onto his back. Helms began giving her son-in-law CPR.

"She wasn't doing it hard enough," Kirsten said and she took over.

"His chest still wasn't rising and he had no pulse at all," Kirsten added.

Kirsten said she knows she called 911 at 8:58 a.m. A Kenmore rescue squad arrived shortly, about 9:06 a.m.

"It felt like forever," Kirsten said.

While he had to recover from an induced coma and is now undergoing cardiac rehabilitation, Troy was around Oct. 21 when the Northshore Fire Department honored Kirsten for her smart thinking and use of CPR to save her father's life.

"She's definitely my hero, no doubt about it," Troy said.

You may have noticed that up to this point, Kirsten has told more of the story than her father. That's because Troy said he remembers none of what happened to him that Saturday, adding he's sorry he put his family through the incident.

"I don't even remember really being awake that morning," Troy said. "I don't even remember going to bed Friday night."

Kirsten said medics took over CPR and other measures upon their arrival. She went into another room to try and help comfort her sisters. Still, Kirsten said she knows from her mom and others that medics worked on her dad for about 45 minutes before feeling comfortable about moving him. They used a defibrillator to shock his heart at least a few times. Kirsten said she's glad she stayed in another room for the most part.

"I didn't really want to see all that anyway," she said.

Medics took Troy to Evergreen Hospital, where doctors induced a coma. Troy wasn't supposed to wake up until late Aug. 15, but he was motioning to a friend who just happened to be in the room by around 8 a.m. Doctors had told his family the biggest worry at that point was brain damage due to oxygen deprivation after Troy's heart stopped. Since then, Troy said doctors have told him he's fortunate no permanent brain injury seems to have occurred.

"I'm just very happy to be here," he said. "Every day is a gift."

Troy stated he has suffered heart problems in the past, but had just been to see his doctor four days prior to Aug. 14 and been told everything was OK.

Kirsten said she had been certified in CPR only a few months prior to the incident, another factor fueling her new belief that maybe things leading up to Aug. 14 weren't all coincidences. Kirsten learned CPR in a health class at Inglemoor High, a class required of all Northshore School District high-school students.

"Looking back, it was super-scary," Kirsten stated regarding her father's cardiac arrest.

"She doesn't really panic," Troy said. "She's alway kind of calm, cool and collected."

Kirsten said that since the incident, she's far more likely to tell her dad how she feels about him than maybe she was previously.

"I say, 'I love you' a lot" she said. "I don't really care about all the awards and stuff. I'm just glad he's still here."

Bothell Reporter Staff writer Tom Corrigan can be reached at tcorrigan@bothell-reporter.com or 425 483-3732, ext. 5052.

Bystanders can cut death rate from cardiac arrest with CPR

Studies show that quick use of CPR, automated defibrillators can save cardiac arrest victims dramatically in many cases

By Pete Aleshire

October 26, 2010

The paramedics riding the Payson Fire Department’s trucks save lives every year. But when it comes to saving victims of cardiac arrest, training citizens in how to give CPR and encouraging businesses to buy automated defibrillators could save more lives than adding firefighters and new stations. That’s the intriguing conclusion that emerges from recent studies on the expensive, frustrating, often futile effort to boost the survival rates of people who suffer cardiac arrest.

Fortunately, in conjunction with Mogollon Health Alliance, the Payson Fire Department every year trains about 800 Rim Country residents in the life-saving use of CPR.

In addition, the department has sought grants and encouraged local businesses to invest several thousand dollars in buying automated defibrillators — computerized machines that can allow even a bystander to safely administer shocks to jump-start a failing heart.

Recent studies suggest that CPR administered within two to five minutes by bystanders plus the use of automated defibrillators boost survival much more dramatically than small additional reductions in ambulance and fire department response times.

Payson Fire Chief Marty deMasi said each of the town’s fire trucks and ambulances carry the manual defibrillators. In addition, the department has trained citizens in the use of automated defibrillators at town hall and other locations around town.

Several private businesses have also invested in the machines, including the Mazatzal Hotel and Casino and several local doctors and dentists.

A host of new studies suggest that finding ways to get bystanders to start treatment immediately provides the best means to reduce tragically high cardiac arrest death rates.

Such defibrillators can dramatically increase cardiac arrest survival rates if used within about five minutes, according to a study published in the medical journal BMJ. By contrast, several studies show that most patients don’t get their first jolt from a defibrillator for 11 minutes if administered by the first-responding paramedics.

The study found that two-thirds of cardiac arrest victims who got a shock from one of the portable defibrillators administered by a bystander survived with good neurological status. That compares to survival rates of 5 to 33 percent in a range of studies that focused on treatment of cardiac arrest by first responders.

Towns like Payson spend millions every year to make sure that a fire truck manned by paramedics can show up on any doorstep in town within four minutes of receiving a 911 call, driven in part by the toll of cardiac arrest, which kills about 300,000 Americans annually.

Unfortunately, even if Payson spends heavily to cut a few minutes off the response time for the handful of cardiac arrest calls that come in each month, most of the patients will still die.

That’s the glum message that emerges from several recent studies on what impact quick response times have on the survival of cardiac arrest patients. Those studies demonstrate that even the quickest paramedics can’t save the majority of patients.

For instance, cutting several minutes off the response time increased the one-month survival rate of cardiac arrest patients from 6 percent to 17 percent, according to a 10-year study involving 43,000 people who suffered cardiac arrest outside the hospital, according to a study published in the medical journal Circulation.

In that case, the biggest gain came from a sharp increase from 19 percent to 36 percent in the number of people who got CPR from a bystander before the paramedics arrived. During the course of the study, the time it took to start CPR dropped from 9 minutes to 7 minutes and the time it took to administer the first shock to start the heart dropped from 19 minutes to 9 minutes.

As a result, a much larger percentage of the patients reached the hospital alive. However, the actual, one-month survival rate still remained below 17 percent. Almost none of the patients who had a cardiac arrest without a nearby witness survived.

Another study that focused on 604 cardiac arrest victims found that survival dropped sharply if patients didn’t get CPR within four minutes and “definitive care,” like that rendered in a hospital, within 10 minutes. Again, the study found that bystander-initiated CPR had a substantial impact, since paramedics can only very rarely arrive on the scene within four minutes and typically spend several more minutes on the scene before they can start CPR or shock the heart.

A study of 3,200 cardiac arrest patients in New York found almost everyone who suffered a cardiac arrest without any witnesses around to provide help died.

Even among those who had witnesses and help, only 5.4 percent survived, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

That was about the same survival rate as another study in Chicago, but dramatically lower that the 36 percent survival rate in a study done in rural, King County, Washington. The researchers said the high death rate reflected “lengthy elapsed time intervals at every step in the chain of survival.”

Kenmore teen's CPR saves father

OK - she was called on to act, she acted, it wasn't a random stranger, it was her dad, he's alive. This happens.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2010

Pictured from left: Tom Weathers, Fire Chief; Kirsten Baker;

Kae Peterson, Fire Commissioner; Troy Baker
Photo courtesy Northshore Fire

On Tuesday, October 19, 30 friends and family watched as the Northshore Fire Department Board of Commissioners presented a commendation to a 17 year old Inglemoor High School student who saved her father's life with the CPR she learned in health class at school.

On August 14 of this year, Kirsten Baker found her father lying unconscious on the living room floor. She performed CPR until the Northshore Emergency Medical Technicians arrived to take over. Kirsten’s quick response saved her father’s life.

Commissioner Kae Peterson praised Kirsten's quick thinking and courageous action. Her father, Troy Baker, hugged her and said “Super proud to call her my daughter. The best in the world right here.”

Today is the day...

Today is the day on which the 2010 changes to the BLS protocols are to be announced. The rampant speculation is that the ratio of compressions to rescue breaths will change (go up) for full CPR and that the applicability of compression-only CPR will be expanded.

In the midst of all this focus on the specific numbers - particularly for us who have training materials to modify - it is important to realize that the getting trained / non getting trained and act / don't act decisions are far more important than the updating of the details of the protocol. And this becomes more relevant when you recall that the victim you see arrest is most likely to be a family member, a friend, or an acquaintance.

We will publish the news later today, if it is announced on schedule. In the meantime, why don't you go get trained?

Bob

'Hands-only' CPR may work best for cardiac arrest

JENIFER GOODWIN
HealthDay

Among adults whose heart had stopped beating, those who received 'hands-only' cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) from a bystander were 60 percent more likely to survive than those who received no CPR or conventional CPR with mouth-to-mouth breathing.

This is good news, researchers said, because not only is 'hands-only' CPR - in which the rescuer does rapid, uninterrupted chest compressions - easier for the public to learn and remember, research shows bystanders are more likely to act when they don't have to do mouth-to-mouth.

"Anyone can do 'hands-only' CPR and anyone can save a life," contends lead study author Dr. Bentley Bobrow, medical director of the Arizona Department of Health Services' Bureau of Emergency Medical Services and Trauma.

"You don't have to have a special certification or take a special course," said Bobrow, who is also an emergency physician at Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix.

Researchers stressed the findings apply only to adults given CPR by the lay public. Children should still usually receive rescue breathing, Bobrow said, as well as anyone who was choking, drowning or having breathing trouble before becoming unconscious.

The study is published in the Oct. 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In 2005, Bobrow and his colleagues launched a statewide initiative in Arizona to improve rates of cardiac arrest survival, including a performance improvement program for emergency medical services and increasing rates of bystander CPR. With the help of fire departments, the initiative included training throughout the community, in schools, online and a mass media campaign.

From 2005 through 2009, 4,415 adults experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Arizona and were not treated by a medical professional. Of those, 2,900 received no CPR from witnesses, 666 (about 15 percent) received conventional CPR that includes rescue breathing and 849 (about 19 percent) received compression-only CPR.

About 13.3 percent of those who received compression-only CPR survived and were discharged from the hospital compared to only 7.8 percent of those who received conventional CPR, a 60 percent difference. Those who received no bystander CPR at all fared the worst - only 5.2 percent lived.

Over time, along with public education campaigns encouraging "hands-only" CPR, the annual rate for bystanders attempting CPR improved from about 28 percent in 2005 to nearly 40 percent in 2009. That rise coincided with the shift to the compression-only technique - in 2005, only about 20 percent of lay rescuers did compression-only compared to nearly 76 percent in 2009.

Overall survival increased from about 3.7 percent in 2005 to 9.8 percent in 2009, the study authors reported.

About 300,000 Americans per year experience cardiac arrest, in which the heart stops beating, outside of hospital settings. Without CPR to continue to pump blood and oxygen to the brain, death occurs within minutes, Bobrow said.

Without a bystander to step in and start compressions, emergency responders often arrive too late, Bobrow said. And the longer a victim goes without oxygen, the less likely an automated external defibrillator will work to restart the heart rhythm.

But for a variety of reasons, bystanders often fail to act. Some are unsure what to do, afraid of doing CPR wrong or don't want to do mouth-to-mouth breathing. "What we have tried to do with 'hands-only' CPR is take out all the reasons people don't act when they see a cardiac emergency - fear, panic, indecision, confusion - out of the equation," Bobrow said. "There is no reason not to try to do hands-only CPR."

That's a crucial message, said Dr. Michael Sayre, an American Heart Association spokesman and associate professor of emergency medicine at Ohio State University. The American Heart Association began recommending 'hands-only' CPR in March 2008.

"That Dr. Bobrow and colleagues could increase rates of bystander CPR through a public education campaign and making the instructions simpler is very encouraging," Sayre said. "In the past, people felt they couldn't intervene because they hadn't taken a class or were confused about what to do. ... We're hopeful that bystander CPR will become more common with simpler instructions. The Arizona study shows this is likely to happen."

Yet more research needs to be done before it can be said definitively that compression-only CPR works better than CPR with mouth-to-mouth, when done correctly, Sayre said.

Two studies in the July 29 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine also found that when bystanders were instructed by emergency dispatchers to give either standard CPR or chest-compression-only CPR, survival rates were similar between the two techniques.

Why might compression-only CPR work better than conventional CPR for adults?

When doing mouth-to-mouth, the rescuer has to stop compressions, which can lead to a rapid loss of life-sustaining blood flow to the brain, Bobrow said. Also, rescuers may have a tendency to blow too much air into the lungs. Overinflating the lungs can make compressions less effective when they resume, Bobrow said.