Emergency Cardiac Care News Digest is an assortment of current events and news related to emergency cardiac care and resuscitation. Produced by Code One Training Solutions, Emergency Cardiac Care News Digest is published every Friday throughout the year.
100 Years of Impact
In 1921, heart disease became the leading cause of death in the United States for the first time in history. Unlike today, back then the common belief was that there was no hope. Heart disease was considered a death sentence.
Some doctors refused to accept that. They knew that if we could understand heart disease better, then we could find ways to treat, beat and even prevent it. Doing so would require research, vision, teamwork – and an organization bringing it all together. And so, in June 1924, six doctors created the American Heart Association.
Learn more: https://www.heart.org/en/bold-hearts-the-centennial/100-years-of-impact
CPR Saves Poet’s Life: Hell’s Kitchen Resident Urges Neighbors to Learn Life-Saving Skills
After preventing a near-death incident during a performance last week, one Manhattan Plaza resident is urging Hell’s Kitchen neighbors to hone their CPR skills.
Dancer Melanie Futorian was participating in her friend Peter Valentyne’s poetry reading and performance Six Authors in Search of a Character on July 31, in Manhattan Plaza’s Ellington Room, when the unthinkable happened. Ten minutes into the performance, Peter fell to the ground and was in cardiac arrest.
“It looked like he wasn’t breathing,” Melanie said. “His eyes were glazed over, I took his pulse and I immediately started CPR.” She gave Peter chest compressions while another friend, Ward Nixon, assisted with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Melanie was relying on her memory of a one-day CPR course she took at the Red Cross 30 years ago. Still, that was more knowledge than the roughly 60 other people in the room who were unfamiliar with the process.
“Thankfully, I remembered [the class] and I thought, I really love this guy. He’s a great human being. He’s kind and talented and smart and adorable, and has a lot of life in him,” said Melanie. In performing CPR, “I was almost like a machine.”
Listen to this story: https://w42st.com/post/cpr-saves-poets-life-hells-kitchen-resident-urges-neighbors-to-learn-life-saving-skills/
ENCORE: Combating drowning in South Africa
Cape Town – Stellenbosch University (SU) and the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding bringing their relevant expertise together to respond to concerning levels of fatal drownings in the country.
Learn more: https://www.netwerk24.com/netwerk24/za/distrikspos/nuus/combating-drowning-in-sa-20240730-2
BELMONT COUNTY, OHIO (WTRF) – Ohio Governor Mike DeWine recently signed a bill into law mandating that every school building should have an AED–an Automatic External Defibrillator.
In Belmont County, one school system is having no problem complying with that. Bridgeport Schools have had them for years.
Bridgeport Schools never had a cardiac arrest, that ended badly or otherwise, and they want to keep it that way.
Video story: https://www.wtrf.com/top-stories/bridgeport-schools-highlight-long-history-of-aed-preparedness/
Trent University adds 37 defibrillators at Peterborough, Durham campuses
Over the past year, Trent University has added 37 publicly accessible automated external defibrillators (AED) across its campuses in Peterborough and Durham, Ont.
In partnership with Action First Aid, the project, which is led by a cross-department working group, took action on a proposal to increase the number of AEDs on Trent’s campuses to 37 from 11. AEDs are portable electronic devices that require no training and are used in combination with CPR to restart a heart after it stops beating.
Video story: https://globalnews.ca/news/10556340/trent-university-adds-37-defibrillators-at-peterborough-durham-campuses/
Just for FUN: Mr. Bean is first on scene for a collapsed person and renders aid
Detroit Fire Department trains DDOT employees on hands-only CPR, AEDs to be placed on board city buses to help Detroiters survive cardiac arrest
DETROIT (FOX 2) – The Detroit Department of Transportation’s (DDOT) bus drivers were taught hands-only CPR on Tuesday as part of the city’s effort to become a HEARTSafe Community.
The HEARTSafe Community program “is a set of criteria and guidelines designed to improve outcomes to sudden cardiac arrest emergencies through a specific set of training, preparation and response protocols,” according to the Citizen CPR Foundation.
Video story: https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/ddot-workers-trained-hands-only-cpr-defibrillators-placed-10-city-buses
Martin County installs AED machines in parks to boost public safety
Multiple parks now have automated external defibrillator machines installed, a move aimed at saving valuable time during cardiac emergencies.
Martin County Fire Rescue has installed 34 of these lifesaving devices across different parks, prompted by a cardiac arrest incident last year at a park in Stuart.
Fire rescue crews hope these AEDs will make a difference in future emergencies, providing immediate assistance to those in need.
Video story: https://www.wpbf.com/article/martin-county-parks-aed-installation/61815413
TRIVIA: Early References and History of CPR
The earliest references to CPR can be found in ancient Egyptian literature of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, in which Isis resurrected Osiris (her slain brother and husband) with the breath of life.
Other early references from the Iron Age can be found in the Bible. For example, according to the Genesis creation narrative, God breathed life into the nostrils of the first man. Later – according to the first Book of Kings – the prophet Elijah (the disciple and protégé of Elijah) resuscitated a Phoenician boy in the city of Zarephath. This is the first instance of resurrection of the dead recorded in the Bible. In the second Book of Kings, Elisha successfully performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on another apparently dead child, this time in the village of Shunem.
More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cardiopulmonary_resuscitation
Study: Bystander CPR more likely to save White adults, men
Whites are three times more likely to survive a cardiac arrest after receiving bystander CPR than Black adults are, a new study has found.
Likewise, men are twice as likely to survive after bystander CPR than women, researchers found.
“CPR saves lives — that, we know,” said researcher Dr. Paula Einhorn, a program officer at the National, Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). “Yet the disparities revealed in this research show we need to do more understand how to ensure equitable outcomes for all patients needing CPR. We’re hoping new insights will lead to better survival for these patient groups.”
For the study, researchers analyzed more than 623,000 cases of cardiac arrest that occurred in the United States between 2013 and 2022.
Learn more here: https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2024/08/07/bystander-CPR-survival-rates-White-adults-men/9511723034752/
CPR saved man, son electrocuted after boat hits power line
A man and his son were rescued by two bystanders and Warwick emergency responders after being electrocuted when the mast of their boat, which was on a trailer, hit a power line on Dundas Avenue near Conimicut Point about 1:45 p.m. Sunday.
The son, identified as Max Horkenbach, 24, by Warwick Police, tried to pull his father Till Horkenbach, 55, of Ridgewood, NJ away from the electrified boat. Both men lost consciousness and Max later awoke to see his father “convulsing on the ground and vomiting,” the police report reads.
At that point, Max ran into the street calling for help, where he caught the eye of Shane Wallerick and Zoe Mushkat — who “just started sprinting,” according to WPRI.
Mushkat, Wallerick and Max Horkenbach all administered chest compressions to the unconscious man. Mushkat is CPR certified. They also contacted emergency personnel.
Will ECPR Move the Needle on Cardiac Arrest Survival?
Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) can be defined as the emergent use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) on patients in cardiac arrest for whom conventional CPR has failed.
According to some estimates, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is responsible for as many as 313,000 deaths annually in the United States and 4-5 million globally, despite administration of chest compressions and cardiac defibrillation. There is growing interest in ECPR as a way to improve survival and return to full cardiac and neurologic function.
“ECMO is a medical procedure that removes blood from the vein, puts it through an oxygenator, then pumps the oxygenated blood back into the artery to bypass the heart and lungs,” Demetris Yannopoulos, MD, professor of medicine at the Center for Resuscitation Medicine and director of resuscitation medicine at University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis, told Medscape Medical News. “It’s basically a heart-lung machine that enables the organs to remain oxygenated, even though the patient is in cardiac arrest.”
ENCORE: Becoming a HEARTSafe Community: A Guide to Reducing Death & Disability from Sudden Cardiac Arrest
This guide is an overview of a community-based approach to improving cardiac arrest outcomes. The evidence-based recommendations and best practices described present interrelated actions that, when combined, can enable short- and long-term improvements for people who experience sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). Here you’ll find HEARTSafe Community strategies and the 13 tactical elements to execute these strategies as well as resources from organizational and industry partners.
Check it out here: https://www.citizencprsummit.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Citizen-CPR-Foundation-HSC-Guide-FINAL.pdf
REMINDER: Register for the AHA ECC National Training Network Conference
The American Heart Association will present the 2024 Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC) National Training Network Conference, which will be held September 25-26, 2024, at the Marriott Marquis in Chicago.
The conference will feature a line-up of more than 20 peer-to-peer sessions and plenary presentations, as well as several ACLS, PALS, and BLS live demonstrations.
On September 24, they will have a pre-conference course and offer ACLS for Experienced Providers (ACLS EP).
More information and registration: https://cpr.heart.org/en/resources/ecc-conferences-and-events
SPOTLIGHTING: The Laerdal Foundation
The Laerdal Foundation was established in 1980 in collaboration with the University of Oslo to provide financial support to practically oriented research projects that can help prevent needless deaths from sudden cardiac arrest, trauma, and during birth. The Board will prioritize applications in the focus areas defined in its strategy, that are considered to have a high potential to improve patient outcomes. The Board further believes there is a particular opportunity for helping save lives at birth in low-resource settings and have therefore earmarked 50% of the grants to the category Saving Lives at Birth in Low-Resource Settings. The Foundation shares the mission with the Laerdal company of helping save lives but operates independently from the Laerdal companies under the regulation of the Norwegian Foundation’s Act.
Learn more: https://laerdalfoundation.org/
Did you catch something in the news related to resuscitation recently that you would like to see in this digest? Want to spotlight an event or activity aimed at improving cardiac arrest outcomes?
Feel free to email david@code1web.com