Man survives 96 minutes without pulse

[nfo2010]

---

Members do not see this ad.

When a 54-year-old man collapsed outside a grocery store on a cold winter's night in rural Minnesota recently, a bystander and a trained first responder who happened to be nearby came together to administer CPR.

Five minutes later, paramedics arrived, continued the CPR, and over the course of the next half-hour delivered six defibrillation shocks.


Then a Mayo Clinic flight crew arrived by helicopter, and they proceeded to administer advanced CPR on the still-pulseless patient. After delivering a total of 11 shocks, the team still couldn't get a pulse, so they upped the drugs, did CPR for two more minutes, and delivered the final, twelfth shock.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20058988-247.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20


Pretty cool stuff.

 

[ozzi22]

neat😱

 

[loveoforganic]

Someone please send this as a nanner nanner booboo challenge to Daniel tosh

 

[5280]

AutoPulse FTW. and tldr, is the dude a vegi?

 

[bucks2010]

AutoPulse FTW. and tldr, is the dude a vegi?

skimming = winning

"After the patient was flown to St. Mary's Hospital, he spent a few minutes in the emergency department and was then taken to the cardiac catheterization laboratory. Over the next 10 days, he recovered from several adverse effects and went home "neurologically intact."

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20058988-247.html#ixzz1LFk2kuNH

 

[LizzyM]

I wonder if the chill of that night contributed to his survival. I think that it might have although it is not mentioned beyond the opening line of the story.

 

[PingPongPro]

I've never been to Minnesota, but the cold weather likely played a role here. This guy is so lucky its ridiculous. With the cold weather, a trained first responder on scene at the time of the arrest, a bystander to help cpr, and the speedy arrival of paramedics. 5 minute arrival time in a widespread area is fast. Interesting to see how all these factors worked in his favor.

I guess it just shows how powerful cpr could be.

 

[kcin]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20058988-247.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20


Pretty cool stuff.

People with ventricular assist devices have this guy's record beat.

 

[senorsquishie]

Like my EMT instructor always said, "they aren't dead until they are warm and dead"

 

[deleted393595]

Holy Moly!

 

[SoDakMLS]

For those with Netflix, there's a National Geographic special I watched recently called "Moment of Death" which talks about how death is a process and not an "on/off" switch. There are interviews with some physicians about this and their theories about the role of oxygen and lower temperatures in resuscitation.

The second half kinda sucks--goes into the whole "near death experience" thing with the tunnel and light. Seems the same thing happens to pilot trainees when they black out in the centrifuge at multiple Gs.

Definitely interesting and worth watching if this story interests you!

 

[Norick13]

Dick Cheney has him beat - seriously he's got a continuous pump and no longer has a pulse.

 

[MRSAful Fate]

Dick Cheney has him beat - seriously he's got a continuous pump and no longer has a pulse.

Despite how awesome that technology is I find this to be extremely creepy.

 

[Iso4ane]

Wait, i thought that defibrillation on a patient w/ asystole didn't do anything. So why shock 11 times?

 

[TooMuchResearch]

Wait, i thought that defibrillation on a patient w/ asystole didn't do anything. So why shock 11 times?

Shocking someone in asystole technically won't do any good, but it's still often tried.

Ventricular fibrillation is uncoordinated contraction of the ventricular myocardium, so there is not a pulse. This often precedes asystole and is very much the time to defibrillate.

I bolded the key terms for you 🙂

 

[Geekchick921]

Shocking someone in asystole technically won't do any good, but it's still often tried.

Ventricular fibrillation is uncoordinated contraction of the ventricular myocardium, so there is not a pulse. This often precedes asystole and is very much the time to defibrillate.

I bolded the key terms for you 🙂

Also, fine Vfib can look a lot like an actual flatline, right?

 

[Iso4ane]

Shocking someone in asystole technically won't do any good, but it's still often tried.

Ventricular fibrillation is uncoordinated contraction of the ventricular myocardium, so there is not a pulse. This often precedes asystole and is very much the time to defibrillate.

I bolded the key terms for you 🙂

I forgot that V-fib also has no pulse (it's been a while since I took a CPR/AED class), but it makes more sense, since most of the time you are hooked up to a heart monitor before any sort of shock is delivered (AED have an internal heart monitor that won't shock asystole). And I don't think you would shock a patient 11 times if he was an asystole.

 

[TooMuchResearch]

Too bad in my personal working experience the second occurs so rarely. Only about 5% of people with asystole react to properly performed CPR making this story even more interesting.

And yes Minnesota is disgustingly cold during at least 3 months of the year (and disgustingly hot during the summer to even the suckitude out ). There's a reason why they build an ice castle in St. Paul and ice slides every winter for the public to enjoy trying out their luck with a luge.

Hard to imagine I can no longer stand the cold despite living there as a kid. Damn Amatepec and it's 100 F weather!

Nah...I watched ER as a kid. I'm pretty sure it's more like 75% 😛